


The Shepherd

by KingLyonheart



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, F/M, M/M, Multi, Other, historic AU, this started as a roseph fic idea but here we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-10 00:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12287202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingLyonheart/pseuds/KingLyonheart
Summary: 1600-1700s AU.Father Joseph is a good man. He loves his wife, his children, and his congregation in the small town of Maplesborough in New England, where he's the town priest.Mr. Small is a good enough man. He loves his whiskey. He loves his town of Maplesborough in New England, where he is the resident witch--unbeknownst to Father Joseph and his congregation.But when an illness sweeps through Maplesborough during the harvest season one year, mob mentality begets that someone has to be blamed.Mr. Small was only trying to avoid a witch hunt.





	1. The Witchcraft of Mr. Small

**Author's Note:**

> what's up here's my first long fic in probably a literal decade.
> 
> this is still in beta mode but i was so happy with it i just wanted to share it so please be forgiving as my amazing beta works through my writing!
> 
> (slight trigger warning for miscarriage/loss of child)

It was Sunday.

  
The edge of the razor drug along the outline of his jaw, pulling ever-so-slightly. A cloth draped around his shoulders was used to wipe off the excess lather as a second and third pass was made. All by the light of a dancing flame sitting above a wash basin in a moderate, but humble room in his home that attached to the church in the small town. It only made sense that their priest lived where he worked, with his family. They slept still. There was no reason to wake them quite yet.

  
Low was the hum that sounded from his vocal chords, Psalm 149. But he was quiet. So quiet. His family was sleeping, and he dragged the razor along his skin again and again until content with the shave. His forefinger lay along his chin, his thumb traced the strength of his jaw, and he rinsed the razor in the wash tub before him. The bubbles of the lather rose to the top as he used the cloth to dry the blade and place it back into the wooden box that he kept his shaving kit in. Chris would be old enough soon that he would have to teach him how to use it, and the idea pulled a smile at the corner of his lips. Over the wash basin was the cloth laid--Mary would pour it out when she awoke, she always did--as he lifted the fabric of his cassock from where it was carefully kept on a hook, dressing himself with meticulous practice and still humming the psalm.

  
Windows that were near impeccably clean were framed with off-white curtains, drawn slowly back by the priest of Maplesborough. The light of the sun was dim yet, the sound of only the earliest risers of birds audible on the trees with their autumnal finery displayed on splayed finger-branches. It was the harvest season. Many of those that kept gardens and farms missed church on Sunday mornings, because they were busy with the harvest. But God understood, and the priest understood, and never did undermine or hold them in contempt. The harvest kept the town fed through the harsh winter, and the work they did was God’s work, loving and preserving his children with him in their heart. Come winter, attendance in the church would be the populous of the town once more, and any that traveled before the snow came.

  
The light fell across Mary’s face as he leaned down to place a kiss on her forehead. She slept off last night’s wine. It kept her nightmares away. She rolled with her back to him, and drew the blanket above her head. She would wake on her own soon enough, and so he left her be. When Mary rose, so would his children.

  
Practiced fingers adjusted the collar as he walked down the hall that connected his living quarters to the church. It was the largest building in the town, topped with an ivory-white cross. (Wooden, of course, not actual ivory. They were only a small town.) High did the windows arch, allowing for the light of the sun to filter through as it rose. People in the town would be waking soon enough. The priest was almost always one of the first to rise in the town.

  
He started at the back of the church. There were fifteen rows of pews. There were three pews per row, and each pew held up to four people. His church could hold up to one hundred and thirty-five people, but that still left standing room. The greatest attendance had been nearer to one hundred and seventy five during a wedding that he performed when the old mayor’s daughter married a soldier from the south. A number of his family made the journey to Maplesborough for the ceremony, and many remarked on how lovely the town was during the harvest season. He was inclined to agree.

Each pew was meticulously checked for hymnals for each that sat in the pews. Each family owned their own Bible, yellowed and dog-eared on some pages, with bookmarks of pressed flowers and ribbons, passed down from their father and their father’s father’s mother whose name was written in faded ink on the innermost cover from where she brought it with her from overseas. Some even had the holy text in other languages. He wasn’t sure if they spoke them, but at least it was the thought that counted. He delivered the word of the Lord himself, so there was no need for all those in attendance to have them. Up and down each pew. All things kept in a meticulous order. A blue cloth was draped over the pulpit at the front on the raised platform so all could see him from where they sat. Many a couple had stood before this same blue cloth embroidered in gold by his loving wife and spoke vows of love and fidelity before the priest and the Lord. As the sun shone through the windows, Father Joseph smiled in its light and unlocked the front door of the Maplesborough Church to all that sought the word of God inside. Most of the town would attend to church on Sundays. There were, of course, the anomalous ones within Maplesborough, such as Mr. Small.

Mr. Small was a war veteran. Mr. Small used to frequent the church, every sunday, and he sat in the middle pew on the second row, usually to the right side from where the priest looked upon him. Mr. Small was a good man who drank a little more than a good man should, but Father Joseph was not the kind of man that would judge too harshly. Sometimes, the flock lost their way. It was his job to guide them back to the light. Mr. Small and Father Joseph partook often in time together, seen dining with one another and walking along the roads of the city attending to errands with one another. Mary joined them upon occasion, the triad often seen with one another laughing and speaking with smiles. But there was a day that Mr. Small was not in his pew in the second row to the right, and he had not been back in the church since. It was not that he necessarily lost the light of God, Father Joseph spoke when inquired about it, but some flock are more easily swayed by the Devil than others.

When asked, Mr. Small would grumble that the Devil took many forms and place his head back on the bar table, depending on how late it was that one made the inquiry.  
It was Sunday, and Mr. Small looked out from his window with a groan as people made for the church in their Sunday best, holding the hands of the children that were too young to walk on their own. Patriarchs and matriarchs of families held their much-loved Bibles against their breasts, except for those that tended to their crops for the harvest season.

But there was another missing from the congregation. Three of them, actually. Their usual pew was empty. The Cahn family were second and third generation in Maplesborough, considering Craig had three children. River was young enough to still sit on his lap in the pews. The Cahn family did not work in the fields, as Craig Cahn was the letter courier for Maplesborough, managing the letter and package distribution from friends and family far removed from the little New England town. There was little that kept the Cahns from church, and so as soon as the morning service was over, Father Joseph would tend to them.

But Mr. Small was the one that would come to investigate the whereabout of the Cahns. They walked right by his window every Sunday, Hazel and Briar flanking their father and sometimes holding to his hands when he didn’t have River bundled up in a blanket. Hazel carried the family Bible. Before River came along, Craig had done it.

Mr. Small knew that if he was not the one to investigate the whereabouts of the missing courier, Father Joseph would. And irritation raised his blood pressure enough that he pushed from his unkempt bed and pulled on a shirt and waistcoat that had seen better days. It was just a moment that he allowed himself to look at the mirror positioned in his sleeping quarters, a hand rubbing over an unshaven face. Grey tinged the growth of brown hair, both on face and head. Crows feet at the corner of his eyes. But he didn’t have time to tend to shaving as he exited his home as rapidly as he had risen from bed. Craig was his friend, and he didn’t want the Devil to saunter in, uninvited. Or invited. Hell, keep the Devil out of his house in general. So he crossed against the flow of the late-risers who moved towards the biggest building in Maplesborough, bedecked in crosses and stained glass and all things holy, towards the house that the courier and his three daughters lived in. Peering through a window with drawn-back curtains he saw the image of Craig laying a cloth across the forehead of one of the twin girls, and he frowned, deepening the wrinkles around his mouth. Hazel and Briar were hearty girls and rarely ever became sick, much like their father. To see him so concerned--

So Mr. Small knocked on the door. He probably couldn’t help, but since Ashley had returned to her family’s plantation in the south with little notice last Spring, things hadn’t been as easy as they once had been. Craig had spent a good amount of time around Father Joseph, and Mr. Small had seethed at every mention of it. Maybe it had helped him. But the man wasn’t here to help him now and that was a duty that Mr. Small was willing to partake as he wrapped his scarred knuckles (from the war or from whittling, it was hard to tell) against the door and awaited the response of the father within.

Hinges creaked and Craig stood in the doorway, eyes outlined by the bruising that denoted a lack of sleep but still he managed at least the shadow of a smile. “Robert. What brings you around?”

“Didn’t see you heading to listen to Joseph talk about fire n’ brimstone for a few hours this morning. Figured something was wrong.” And his voice was quiet, almost not befitting of Mr. Small as he moved past the courier with relative ease and into the second room where he had seen one of the daughters lay, fevered. Craig hardly had time to close the door before Mr. Small already attended to the bedside of the girl, a hand removing the cloth.

“Rob, she has a fever. Don’t…”

But the comment was waved off as readily as one would rid himself of a petulant fly: a flick of the wrist before a hand pushed away locks of dark hair tinged with sweat. Her eyes tightened, but did not open. She wasn’t fully awake. “How long?”

“Last night.” Craig was not versed in everything about Mr. Small, but it was known that somewhere he had a daughter and had raised her as best he could. No one ever asked where she was. It seemed better to allow that sleeping dog to lie. “I was hoping it was just from where she’d been in the sun, but, uh, I’m thinking she’s come down with something…”

“Out in the sun?” He didn’t turn his eyes from the girl, making careful observations of her breathing pattern as his hand was over her mouth. It was ragged and hitched occasionally, and he frowned at that.

“Yes, her and Hazel were playing yesterday in the woods while I was sorting mail. And--they’re smart girls, I know they wouldn’t do anything like, eat a weird berry… and it didn’t look like anything had stung her, or bitten her… I was going to ask Father Christiansen to have the congregation pray for her, but I couldn’t leave her like this.”  
Nostrils flared in a scoff as Mr. Small carefully lifted the cloth again, extending it towards Craig. “Joseph’s prayers wouldn’t do shit.” A first name basis. No one ever really heard Mr. Small refer to Father Joseph with the given title. Craig paled a bit at the statement, but he took the cloth to dunk it in the crisp water again, passing it back. Over the young girl’s exposed face and neck did Mr. Small carefully dab the water, strategically, meriting a tired groan from her. “Just let her sleep. I’ll be back later with something that’ll help.”

“Robert,” as Craig looked after the retreating form who turned, looking at him with a brow raised. “Would you ask the congregation for their prayers for me?”

“No.”

The door closed reasonably hard behind the veteran as he took his departure from the small house. A cross nailed by the door wiggled on its nail, falling with little ceremony to the floor with a small sound. The courier replaced it, shaking his head after the sudden departure as he tended to placing the wet cloth on Briar’s forehead again, speaking comfort to her in hushed tones. Everything would be alright. God was good to those that were good to him.

Mr. Small attended to his work without much mind or thought to how time passed, to the procession of people that walked outside his window. His curtains were drawn, he paid no mind, and he paid no mind, handfuls of various herbs and other ingredients to mix with water into a fine paste. The mortal and pestle ground against one another, discoloring, changing, a pinch of this and a bit of that. Few knew this, and even fewer spoke of this, but Mr. Small was what people in the town would have called a with. His family had ties to other countries, other places. Creole or European. He did not know, and he did not let his mind linger too far on it. His mother taught him casting stones. His mother taught him to read the stars and the moon, and when he was in the army, it probably saved his life. Mr. Small did not consort with the devil.

Outside of one time, he would remark, over a glass of inexpensive whiskey at the tavern run by another who sat in church on Sundays.

No, nobody knew that Mr. Small was what the town would call a witch, and he kept it well enough to himself. He even prayed to the same God as the rest of the town. He’d sat many a time in Father Joseph’s church and mouthed along with the hymnals and recited the same prayers he had known all his life. He’d only consorted with the Devil that one time.

The paste was mixed with water within the confines of a bottle that he placed the cork on, and he wrapped around it a hemp rope with a stone on it. He’d take that off before he passed it to Craig, but the healing properties of the crystal…

Sometimes, he wondered if it was all bullshit. If it was the Devil, and he didn’t know it, but he fastened the knot and slid the small bottle into his waistcoat. When he left, he did so with the flow of the crowd that returned to their homes after the conclusion of Father Joseph’s sermon. He did not walk against the flow, instead, but with it.

“Brother Small! Brother Small!”

And the voice was familiar. Familiar enough that he glanced over his shoulder and saw the visage of the town mayor with his son a few steps behind, all finery and black hair tied back with a silk ribbon. The touch on his wrinkled shirt of hands fair as milk was almost enough to make him recoil, for when was the last time they had talked? He could not truly recall it, and to be hailed so. A brow arched, a brow decorated with the familiar salt-and-pepper grey. “Mayor Bloodmarch.”

“I told you,” as he beamed that familiar grin. “Damien. If you must, Brother Damien.”

And Mr. Small’s voice was gruff when he spoke again to the mayor, almost recoiling his arm from the touch, the hand drawing from it with little hesitation, as though he knew this song and dance. And the major could almost call upon what would be the response. “I am no ‘Brother.’ I’m not a part of Joseph’s flock or whatever he’s calling you now.”

“Robert. Robert, then, if you so chose.” Somehow, he was still smiling. It made him question things from time to time. “I never did thank you for when you helped Lucien when he had the fever last Summer…”

“Yeah.” His fingers touched over the hemp string that fastened the stone onto the glass of the bottle. A bead. He’d bored the hole in it himself, he’d found the stone himself, polished it. Stones and crystals only had inside of them what was placed there, regardless of what, if any, properties existed therein based on material alone. He was fumbling and attempting to undo the tie, wary that the mayor may well follow him all the way to the mail courier’s house. “Glad he’s alright.”

The gait of the veteran was quick, and his gait was wide, and he moved with a slight limp that few people noticed and few people cared to mind. Few people cared to mind much about Mr. Small, and he liked it that way. It was easiest of people didn’t mind him and merely left him to his own. Mayor Bloodmarch, however, seemed to act in opposition to that on this particular day. Mayor Bloodmarch was only a few steps behind him as he made his way towards Craig’s home, hand in his pocket as he attempted to undo the ties. An exhale through his nose was the only thing that belied frustration, and the mayor seemed to catch to that. His gait slowed, and his smile faded slightly. Mr. Small seemed to not desire to be spoken to. It seemed he finally caught the hint.

“Perhaps we’ll see you among Father Christiansen’s flock again one day, Brother Sm-... Robert.”

Any sort of response would only have encouraged further communication. Mr. Small navigated himself so there was a vaguely familiar face between himself and the mayor and so the conversation ended, right as fingers bedecked in cuts and calluses managed to undo the knot in the hemp string. His eyes cut to the right, then to the left, and the string was uncoiled from the bottle and tossed into the growth of a bush before one of the buildings he walked past. He didn’t bother to mind that it was the local inn. The stone just fell, affixed to the string, and it disappeared from sight and mind. He was back on his patch towards the mail carrier’s house sans something that probably would have brought the suspicion of the town upon him. The last thing he needed was accusations of witchcraft.

They wouldn't be wrong. He just didn’t want the town to know.

He didn’t bother to knock. The doorknob squeaked in his hand and Craig’s head immediately whipped around to address the opening of the door. In Maplesborough, there was little reason to be too concerned. There was little reason to lock someone’s doors, especially when someone was at home in the house. But Briar's illness had him reasonably more stressed out than normal. But the breath he didn’t realize he was holding was exhaled when it was Mr. Small’s presence in his doorway, hand moving into his waistcoat pocket to pull out the vial of medicine that he had made for the ailing daughter. It was passed into Craig’s hands and the courier looked at it, before looking back at Mr. Small.  
“Don’t give it to her directly,” as the door clicked closed, securing the Cahn family inside with the veteran man. There were still those returning home from church. Some of them were more skeptical than others. Mr. Small placed his weight in a wooden chair and he, too, exhaled a breath that he wasn’t aware that he had been holding. “It should only be taken with food. Broth, if you can get her to drink broth, at least.” His eyes were dropped down to his hands. Scarred. He traced one with his thumb and he heard the footfalls of Craig walking past him to where Briar was awake, but coughing softly. Her face was flushed crimson as Mr. Small turned his eyes over towards her, and Craig sat on the foot of her bed.

Valencia had looked just like her mother. Sometimes, when he looked at Craig’s daughters, he remembered when she was young. He remembered sitting up and tearing pieces of paper into tiny squared as she coughed.

“No more than a spoonful.” There were probably about a half dozen spoonfuls in the bottle that had been handed over to Craig. He didn’t care much if he happened to get the empty bottle back or not. Another thing that would lead to suspicion as the godliness of Mr. Smalls (as if it was not already known that such was up to debate on even the best of days) was the amount of empty bottles he kept. Some still had stones tied to them. Some of them were just emptied liquor bottles. He kept them, for any number of reasons. Empty bottles of all sort. Never knew when he’d need them. Usually they were used to quietly pass remedies when the traveling doctor was not in town--more often than not, really. It seemed the town was far more than willing to turn a blind eye to things that may be witchcraft, if they were beneficial to them. Mr. Small tended to turn a blind eye to that, too. He turned a blind eye to a lot of things. It was easier to live in this town if he turned a blind eye to those things. “And only after she’s at least had some broth. Not water. Broth.”

Shaking hands ran over Briar’s hair, brunette strands stuck to her face. Craig’s girls didn’t get sick. It was rather well known that Craig’s girls didn’t get sick and really, Mr. Small was happy that it was Briar and not the infant. It was much harder to get an infant to take a spoonful of something that probably tasted vaguely like algae, like pond water. That which came from the earth was the best he could do. He wasn’t a doctor, by technicality. A medicine man at best. “Hey there, scout,” and he smiled a bit. “Rob brought you somethin’ that’ll make you feel better, okay? But we need you to eat something first. Are you hungry?”

The sound of the door drew Craig’s attention again and he was aware that the chair Mr. Small had prior been in was now vacant, and he frowned. But that was the man’s way, especially when he stopped attending church. He came and went. There were a few houses he even would walk into unannounced. Craig’s was one of them. Sometimes when Father Joseph was away, the marital home he shared with Mary, attached to the nicest building in all of Maplesborough, that was one of them. And even sometimes the mayoral house that was bedecked in flowers imported from all around. Roses that grew so bright. It was pretty, when the flowers bloomed. Robert once climbed the vines of one of the thicker plants to the mayor’s second-story window. The mayor’s house was the only one with two stories. Mayor Bloodmarch told him never to do that again.

 

 

It was a Sunday afternoon. Father Joseph oftentimes spent those afternoons going about the houses to those that did not attend church. This was to make sure all was well. To pray for those who were ill, to speak with those who were lost. Mr. Small’s house was no longer considered a part of his route. He had appeared once, all blonde hair and pressed waistcoat, and had the door slammed in his face. The next time, the door was not even opened. There was no third time. A sheep would return to the flock when it was afraid, or when it was hungry. Sheep knew they needed guidance, so they tended to the shepherd, for he showed them the way.  
He had faith that one day, Mr. Small would return to his flock. The thought crossed his mind sometimes. He would return when it was his time to find his salvation in the light of the Lord.

Some walked to the small Sunday market, held every week after church. They waved at Father Joseph, with mothers holding their long skirts in their hands and children running a few steps ahead. That is, until they saw Father Joseph. Father Joseph always told them that it was expected on Sundays to be quiet and calm. He smiled at them as he walked by and turned his head when they picked up the pace on their way to the Sunday market, with their mothers holding their skirts and keeping up with them.  
There were a few names on his list. A total of three families. One had a new baby, and so he understood. He was a father of four, after all! A new baby was quite the handful and it was difficult to get away when they were so small. Out of respect, it was best to keep the places of worship quiet. One, an ailing, elderly parent. And the third was the Cahn household.

Craig knew it wasn’t Mr. Smalls back, as he heard the rap on the door. He probably wouldn’t have knocked. Or maybe he would have. It was excessively hard to predict him. Craig didn’t often bother. Father Joseph, however, was more predictable. Three quick knocks. River was old enough now to come to Sunday worship, but he knew those three, quick knocks from when she was too young, and the courier opened the door with a smile. “Oh! Father. Ah… thank you for, uh, checking on us.”  
“Of course. I am the Shepherd of Maplesborough. It is my duty to make sure all my flock are attended to. May I?”

“Oh! Yeah.”

Craig’s brows tightened before they relaxed again, he canted his head ever so slightly to the side as Father Joseph entered and strode around the humble house. But he seemed to take interest in the bottle that was placed by the bedside of the young girl who remained still in her night clothes. He observed as the holy man’s brows tightened over his eyes and his hand extended towards the bottle. “Medicine, Craig? Is Briar unwell?”

The cork had been removed from the bottle only to have been replaced, one less spoonful in it than had been there initially. Broth and bread she had managed to consume and she had taken a spoonful of the medicine afterwards. And she was asleep now, but less fitful, and it eased Craig’s heart.

“Ah… uh, yeah. She had a bit of a fever. Wasn’t doing too well this morning… I was gettin’ worried until Rob… uh, Brother Small…” Because it was still commonplace to refer to Mr. Small as Brother Small in the presence of Father Joseph. No one was quite sure why, but the name Robert made his face contort unpleasantly. “He brought by some medicine.”

The bottle was placed back where it had been on the table, and he did turn to Craig. That paternal light was in his eyes was he reached forward. “I’m glad Brother Small was able to help you, Craig. We’re blessed to have a town so full of caring people, like Brother Small. Is there anything else you need? Mary and I could certainly help cook until Briar is better. I know how hard it has been for you, since Ashley…”

He had to admit, he was glad Father Joseph didn’t continue that statement. There was a sadness in blue eyes and he smiled in return.

“Yeah, Father! That… that’d be great, actually. Hazel’s out at the market to grab a few things to make stew. Brother Small said soup would be best for Briar for a while but… hey, if you’re offering.”

The priest's hand clapped onto Craig’s shoulder and the smile was genuine. “Please, bring your family over this evening. We take our supper at six and we’d be more than happy to have you.”

But as the man was leaving, it occurred to Craig: “That won’t be too much on you and Mary, will it? I know… you know, four kids an all. She usually looks a little tired.”  
For a moment, his eyes were grim. But Craig didn’t see it, and he kept whatever caused it to himself. “Don’t worry! I’m always there to help my wife when she needs me. We’re partners, of course. Blessed to share life’s burdens. I will pray for Briar, Craig. I hope for her swift recovery.”

Pleasantries were exchanged and a departure was made, and Father Joseph attended to business with his family and Craig attended to Briar, making sure she was as comfortable as possible while she sweat out her fever.

Mr. Small attended to what Mr. Small always attended to as soon as he could on a Sunday afternoon after the procession of everyone back to their homes: drinking. Mat knew his games by now. The innkeep wouldn’t even serve him on a Sunday until the sun had gone down. But that was why he had his own stash. That was why he had a number of empty bottles positioned around. Some, yes, purchased specifically from glassblowers and makers for the sake of potions. Others… others had come to him filled with their own, special poisons. Mr. Small drank too much, and Mr. Small knew he drink too much, but Mr. Small really didn’t care what anyone else had to say about the fact he drank too much. And that was that.

Actually, he only cared when that person had the ability to deny him alcohol, and Mat had that ability. The inn served as a restaurant and a tavern of sorts and was the only place in the town to get a drink. So he spent a good amount of time there, until Mat thought it was a problem. So he started keeping his own stash for when that happened. And for Sunday mornings and afternoons. It was rare he even got out of bed without a nip of something to get him going.

Father Joseph always walked by his house on his trek back to the church. As Mr. Small poured an amber liquid into a glass, Father Joseph walked by his window, and he stopped, there was the clink of the bottle against the glass and the flutter of off-white curtains because his window was open. And he saw the priest stop and lift his head, and he would have sworn the bastard had heard the sound of glass on glass, and then he just kept walking. So Mr. Small kept pouring before he threw back the contents of the glass. And this was a process he periodically repeated until the point that it was late enough he made his way to the only inn in all of Maplesborough. And he knew Mat would probably already be behind the counter breaking out the bottles and, depending on how the morning’s sermon went, Mary might have beaten him to the familiar seats by the bar. It wasn’t surprising that the little town, all draped in godliness, only had a single bar. And it was nestled inside of the inn, and guised as primarily used for travelers.

“There’s the man of the hour.”

His suspicions were right. The sun was down. Mary sat there, familiar in her long dresses of brown and her golden cross necklace, nursing from a glass as Mat cleaned an additional one from behind the counter. He didn’t look over. Mr. Small was sure he knew by Mary’s vocalization that it was his presence that graced the room, his presence that filled the seat next to her.

“Mary, Mary, quite contrary.” The glasses clinked together and he threw his back as though it was water. He wasn’t sure how much he’d had at this point. He didn’t really care that much, either. Especially on Sundays. “How does your garden grow, huh?”

“Go to hell, Robert.”

But she laughed and smiled, and pressed her elbow into his ribs. She didn’t laugh and smile like this around Father Joseph. At least, not from what he had seen. Not in a long while. Maybe once, but not in a long while. Maybe once, but he wasn’t sure he was around to see it. That almost made it a little easier.

“Really though, Mother Mary, how are you?”

She scoffed at him, she tapped her glass on the bar and it was refilled.

“Playing happy family is exhausting, Rob,” and she exhaled as soon as her glass was drained, and she waved to keep Mat from filling it again. She needed to catch her breath. “The Cahns were over. Craig’s girl--”

“Briar’s sick.” He hadn’t slammed back his second drink. He sipped at his, head turned to look at Mary as she spoke. The bags under his eyes never went away at this point. “I didn’t see him walking to church. Got worried. Went to check on Craig and--”

“And left her a bottle of herbal medicine. Don’t worry, Joe felt the need to tell me about it with a concerned look in his face.” And to emphasize her point she sat back in the chair, causing a creak, and laid a hand over her heart--the motion was very much one that the priest would make. That alone caused a muted bark of a chuckle to come from him. “ ‘Mary,’ he says to me with those damned perfect brows low over those pretty blue eyes, ‘I’m concerned about Robert. I am worried he’s strayed from the ways of the Lord.’ ” And she rolled her eyes, her glass on the bar, three-quarters full. She probably had a headstart on Robert, judging by her behavior.

Mat could have told all of this to Father Joseph, but he didn’t. Mat was a good man who minded his own business, outside of not serving alcohol until after sundown on Sundays. That might have been at the behest of the town’s priest. Mr. Small tended to blame any and everything he could on that man, even if he was likely unrelated.  
“I wanted to tell him if he knew anything about you he’d know you’d strayed from the path of the Lord long ago. He’s so self righteous. Makes me sick sometimes.” And about half of what remained in her glass found its way into her stomach before Mr. Small even had the time to concoct a retort to her statement.

“Most holy types are. From what I’ve seen, in the army, traveling around… lot of holier-than-thou talk going on.” His fingers were steepled over the glass. It was familiar. He was pretty sure Mat kept two glasses specifically for himself and Mary. Well, three--some days Mary went for the wine. Today was not a day that Mary went for wine. “Can’t believe you married him.”

A hand pushed back her sandy brown hair. Mr. Small had seen all four of the children that she and Father Joseph had. Of the four, only one drew after her. The youngest, Crish. He looked like Mary. The others favored their father.

Mr. Small thought that was a blessing and a curse.

“He’s a good man,” as she exhaled through her nose, and her finger traced around the rim of her glass. “And a good, devout father.” She wouldn’t deny these things. In all the times they spent together, drinking and talking as they did, she never downplayed that Father Joseph as a good father, and a generally good man. Generally. She was staring into her drink again. “But there’s shit we both hide from each other. I can’t play like I’m any better than he is.”

The glass held by the veteran was rapidly drained and placed back upon the bartop with a click. He would never call Mat a trained dog to his face, but that click certainly prompted him to move from wherever he was to wherever the glass had sounded with bottle in hand before attending to whatever it was that he had abandoned. Mr. Small lifted his glass.

“To our vices, Mary.”

The glasses clinked together before both were drained with elbows interlocked. Camaraderie at its finest between these two.

“We should go on a walk through the woods tonight, Rob,” she leaned her weight against him, and he supported her with ease. “We haven’t gone on a walk in a long time.”  
But Mr. Small knew exactly what she meant by a walk as he finished his drink and paid his tab. He’d have to go back to his house and prepare what would be needed for these walks. So he told her to meet him at the right place in an hour, and he’d be waiting for her.

 

 

A number of crystals. A number of herbs. Bound dried sage. The leather bag would always smell of things that burned and things that spiced as he loaded up a few jars of those herbs, a few crystals wrapped in cloth and bound with hemp twine. The same hemp twin that had bound a small bead to the bottle that had been passed from himself to Craig. Tomorrow was Monday. He would have to check in with the courier as to the wellbeing of his daughter then, so he made a note to do so in the back of his mind. But he’d forget it by the time the sun came up. He tended to do that.

The laces of his boots were tightened. If they were going into the woods, it was probably a good idea to do that. Though it was the harvest season, the weather was still somewhat too warm, to stifling to permit donning his leather coat. That would wait until the first frost, and that was a month or so out yet. So the strap of the bag was thrown across his body as he peered out. It wasn’t a full moon. It would have been better if it was a full moon, but it wasn’t, and he had to make due. Mary probably would have resisted if he tried to tell her to wait until the full moon. Most practice could be done at any phase, she always insisted. He usually agreed.

They met on the edge of town. There was a place where the thick lining of trees parted down the way, but they never me there. They met behind the Maplesborough Church and made their way along the treeline together and then disappeared, quiet as mice. Rumors seemed to cycle periodically about an affair. Father Joseph never paid them any mind and so neither did most of the townspeople, because Mary and Mr. Small and Father Joseph all knew the truth, though none would speak it. Hidden under the rug it was and would remain that way. It was easier.

At least, it seemed easier on the outside.

Mary held her skirts up so she could walk with ease, the layers of a simple petticoat present beneath the outer demure and simple brown. Mr. Small’s thumb was hooked into the strap of his bag. It was dark enough that no one would see them, but he’d donned a black overcoat just in case. A light one. Not his favored leather one, not until the first frost.

Neither of them spoke until they were within the embrace of the trees. Sometimes one of the coyotes that called the forest home would howl in greeting of them, but it was only the sound of frogs and insects that greeted them in tandem with a far-off rustling. They’d frightened something. Perhaps an errant hare. Her boots were placed carefully over stick and log and his crushed the occasional dried tinder beneath his weight. He broke the silence.

“Why in such a hurry?”

This was the point at which she was aware of the fact she was a few paces ahead of him and she stilled her trek. The dark made it hard to read her. Sadness, or was it anger? He didn’t inquire, and she would tell him in time if she wanted to. Such were the unique parameters of their relationship. A raised brow asked the question for him, but she jerked her head and indicated they should continue. So Mr. Small obliged, though their pace was slowed and, somewhere, the low whistle of a tree frog sounded. Were such sounds not around them, well, Mr. Small may well have been unnerved.

She stopped, suddenly. He very nearly struck her back, but managed to still himself with a palm spread over the thick brown fabric before him, and she took a shaky inhale.  
“Help me rid myself of child, Robbie.”

Air in his lungs was suddenly ice as she turned to him and spoke with what edged on desperation. Mr. Small’s mother had been a witch, but Mary did not have the history of it in her family. She didn’t know. Not as much. She didn’t practice like he did and so he understood these questions but his eyes were still wide and he even shook his head.  
“Ah… Mary.” Maybe he should have sobered up a bit more. Her hands were laced and they rest upon her stomach. “I don’t touch the harmful shit--”  
Mary grabbed his hands. He squared his jaw.

“I never ask you to help me, Robbie.” Robbie. He was Robbie when she really needed something, and he just didn’t like that, but he let her get away with it. “Please. I can’t have any more of Joe’s kids.”

Flowers of ice and frost bloomed in his lungs, over his heart. Desperation swelled in her voice like the tide of the sea that her husband loved so much but Mr. Small could not bring himself to move from where he was as though his shoes had laid roots into the soil. Mr. Small shook his head from side to side and the corners of his lips turned down in a clear look of disapproval: “Mary,” as he exhaled slowly, schooled his urge to simply snap no. “The rede states, ‘that it harm none, do as thou wilt.’ That is… nearly the only rule of the practice, Mary, I can’t.”

“You can’t or you won’t? Joe breaks the rules of his religion, why can’t you?”

“It’s different--”

“What good is all your magic if you can’t even help your friend?”

“I do help my friends, Mary,” another heavy exhale. It was like a weight was on his chest, crushing inward, pushing down onto the ice that formed in his every breath. “But I won’t hurt anyone.”

“You’ll hurt me by not helping me!”

Subconscious were his movements as he came to grip tighter to the leather strap that crossed his chest. Every bit of Mr. Small knew that she would not simply let it go at his behest. So he leveled his gaze at her and took an inhale through his nose, the bridge of which he pinched. “That’s not what I meant, Mary, and you know it.”  
To A few quick strides and he felt her hands gripping to his shoulders. He heard the catch in her tone and saw the glisten of tears, even here, even in this low light. They weren’t shed yet. They simply lay in wait in the corners of her eyes. “Do this for me, Robert. I can’t have any more of his children. You owe me. You owe me after--” but Mr. Small interrupted her. Mr. Small silenced her as he placed a hand over her mouth. No, there were none around--but he did not trust the trees. He did not trust the air. He did not trust the leaves. They could tell secrets, and he didn’t want to cross a line.

Nor did he have an express desire to hear her speak the words again. Truth was painful and Mr. Small made a point to avoid pain when he was able to.  
“I can’t,” as he took another slow, steady inhale. His hands gripped to those that held fast to his clothes, feeling the bite of a wedding band against his palm. Mr. Small… he didn’t wear his anymore. Father Joseph still did, and he always had. He probably always would. “I… not now,” spoke the shaken voice, dropped, a scrape just barely above a whisper. “I would have to find belladona. It would have to be cut on the night of a full moon…”

“I can’t, Rob. Please.”

A tear streaked down her face and he knew now he could not say no. He knew how that she was serious as could be with her pleas, gripping to his hands, voice wavering.  
“I get it. I get it.” She was drawn against him, similar in height. Her head was on his shoulder and he embraced her loosely. “Just… give me a week. I’ll come up with something in a week.”

He heard her mumbled thank-you and he felt the piercing in his chest. The full moon wasn’t for two more weeks. Mr. Small was not the kind of man to pull strings or cut corners, but he may have to in this instance, and he sighed.

But what could he do? She was right. He more than owed her after what he did.

So he met her in the same spot a week later and he didn’t carry a satchel with him. He only carried a bottle, but this bottle wasn’t clear like his others. The glass was foggy and hard to see through, and the moon was high in the sky when they met. It cast enough light he clearly saw her making her way through the brush. He saw he holding her skirts up, and looking happily towards him.

“You’re a savior, Rob.” But before he could even extend the bottle to her, he heard her speak. “My courses started this morning. It… hurt. It.. was more than normal. I must have lost the child. I know I must have.”

The man paled at the words, but the moon didn’t make that much visible. The glass was tucked away in his waistcoat again as though it had never been withdrawn. While he was aware of the fact it was the placebo, what he called upon was not to take effect until after the placebo was given. But he supposed if Mary was happy.  
And she was, as she embraced him close. He could smell wine on her, but she hadn’t been at the inn. Mat had been secretive lately, and cast glances at him across the way from time to time. They didn’t talk outside of the inn. Mr. Small didn’t speak to many people outside of the inn, but he watched the world through his window. He’d seen Briar and Hazel running to the most recent Sunday market with Craig a few steps behind, holding River against him. She grew bigger every time he saw her through that window, while Mr. Small grew older behind the glass pane surrounded by alcohol. He hadn’t come out much in the past two weeks.

“I would have thought for sure I’d have to drink something. At least. But no… thank you.”

“Yeah,” as she stepped back from their hug, and he felt the bottle warm against his shirt. “Don’t mention it.”

 

 

“I thought she was better.”

Nobody in town liked seeing Craig cry. Maplesborough was a town where no one, really, delighted in seeing anyone else cry, but maybe it was Mr. Small’s own bias that he projected on everyone else by assuming no one liked to see Craig cry. Drawing back his curtains on a Tuesday afternoon and seeing his least favorite priest in all of Maplesborough (quite a title, seeing as there was one priest in Maplesborough) with a hand on Craig’s shoulder as tears shone in those bright eyes made his heart clench. It was doing a lot of that lately. He was going to have a heart attack if this kept up. But he just opened his window and let the conversation carry to him, sorting bottles by size. Small to large. He’d probably sort them the opposite way before the end of the week. Scarred fingers moved along corks as he listened, listened.

“She seemed quite well in church last Sunday.” Of course she did. How much can you tell from behind a pulpit? “And she quite happily ran to the Sunday market afterwards. She seemed quite well, and we have been praying for her recovery.” Because prayer worked. Mr. Small rolled his eyes. His herbal remedies happened to have a lot more with Briar’s recovery than the prayer from the people at the church, as far as he was concerned.

“Yeah… yeah, I thought she was, too. But she woke up in the middle of the night coughing. Didn’t get back to sleep…” Already Mr. Small felt his hands reaching towards a collection of dried herbs, bottled oils. Small vials. They were usually diluted. They were kept in a drawer and they were locked up tight, in case anyone came snooping. Usually they didn’t. People mostly left Mr. Small well enough alone in his house, since his wife died and his daughter left. He liked it that way. “But it’s worse. It’s worse than it was, like, it came back twofold.” Forward did the veteran lean, resting his head against a particularly tall bottle as he listened. Came back?

Father Joseph knew whose house he stood before. He knew the window was opened, and he knew that Mr. Small was inside doing whatever it was that Mr. Small did in the privacy of his own home. While he didn’t inquire, he didn’t particularly have a desire to find out. And yet. “Place your faith in our Holy Father. I’m sure she’ll be alright.”  
Keen ears would hear the glass bottles clink against one another from the inside of the house. Hand gripped them tighter than they needed to, pushing them together with an unintentional amount of pressure. They’d clinked. Frankly, he didn’t think anyone would care, but he wasn’t risking lifting his eyes. Too much of a chance of meeting blue ones peering accusingly at him. To hell with that. A very scarred thumb ran over a quartz with a deep divot and the man had no recollection of having seized the worry stone--quartz was good for easing the mind. By some miracle, this one wasn’t dust yet. The last one had been ground to pieces.

“I… yeah. Keep praying for my little girl, Father. And thank you.”

“If you need anything, please let us know. We’re here for you.”

“Don’t worry. I will.”

He hadn’t even seen the blond bastard and he knew, somehow, he knew that Joseph knew he had given something to Briar to help out and now he was swaying Craig from it. The very notion caused him to grit his teeth, his jaw squared and tight to the point he felt his teeth grinding. Father Joseph was sticking his nose into Mr. Small’s life even though he was by no means a part of it anymore. At least, no more than living in the same tiny town mandated.

One of the glass bottles shattered in his hand. He didn’t even know he’d been holding it that tightly, but apparently he had. He had bandages nearby. But for now, he just watched the carmine well up over the sliced skin, beads of lifeblood trickling down his arm and staining the cuff of his shirt.

“Brother Rob, are you--hey, are you okay?”

When his brain realigned itself with his body, he was aware of Craig standing at his window with concern in those eyes that he’d glanced up and seen brimming with tears. Brown eyes dragged down to look at his hand riddled with scars and now smeared with blood. Father Joseph was gone. To what ends, Mr. Small did not know nor did he care. He was relieved to look up and only see the dark hair and narrow eyes of Craig and not the blonde and blue of the priest.

‘Brother Rob.’ It made him smile that crooked little smile as he looked up. It was only the courier mentioning it that prompted the veteran to rise from where he sat shockingly still to draw bandages from one of the drawers. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to make some sort of healing salve, but it did sound a whole lot like work. He wasn’t in the mood for it.

“Hand slipped,” was a grunted explanation as white linen was twined around the hand, only after at least a passing effort had been made to pluck the glass out of the wound. There was probably still some in there. He’d deal with it later. “Dropped a bottle. Shouldn’t you be with your little ones?”

“I was grabbing something from the market. Hazel is watching her sisters… She really takes after her mom, you know? Real… motherly.” Mr. Small’s back was to the window, but he smiled a bit as he heard Craig talk of his girls. He started slightly when he turned back around to see that the courier had ducked his head through the open window.  
“I don’t know what Joseph put you up to, but try not to give me a heart attack. I’m old.” And he was. It shined in his hair, in his face. In the scars on his hands, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Mr. Small wasn’t the young man he had been when he moved to Maplesborough with a wife and young daughter. That time was long gone, and some days, he pined for its return.

“That’s… a lot of blood on the table.”

Sure, Mr. Small had tended to his hand. The mess on the table was for another day. Or never. The dried reddish-brown may simply add to the menagerie of other stains that bedecked that table top. Hell, he probably couldn’t even identify all of them anymore.

“... You said your hand slipped?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Cleanliness was not Mr. Small’s strong suit, but he could make an attempt at it if Craig so insisted. The hand that was uninjured grabbed a cloth and set about sopping up the blood that hadn’t already absorbed into the texture of the tabletop.

“Could you help Briar?”

Now, it was probably a good thing that the table was on the far side of the room from where Craig was. His expression was visibly sour with lips downturned: Mr. Small trusted Craig and cared deeply for him and his children, just was he loved and trusted Mayor Bloodmarch and Mary. But the proximity of Craig to Father Joseph since the departure of Ms. Ashley Cahn to her family’s plantation scraped him like a knife. Father Joseph wasn’t above exposing Mr. Small as a witch. The idea made the man’s blood run cold before he even spoke again.

“Maybe you should have Father Joseph pray for you if what I did last time didn’t work.” Even the deaf could hear the disdain in the voice when he spoke and Craig flinched slightly. “Seems to be the safer route in this zealot town.”

Though he couldn’t see Craig frowning, he could almost hear it: “Sometimes… Sometimes God needs a little help, you know?”

The tone was hard to read and caused Mr. Small to tighten his brows over his dark eyes. Though his eyes were not turned towards the courier, a strategic glance at the reflective glass of one of the bottles made it clear there was sadness in those eyes. He didn’t think Craig was being used as a dupe, but the anxiety still made his hair stand on end.

“I’m sorry, Craig.” And he was, genuinely. But he was afraid for himself, now, and paranoia won out. “If what I gave you didn’t help, I don’t have much else.”

It was far too hard to not turn and look at the other man as he bade a weary farewell and withdrew from the window. As soon as it felt appropriate, Mr. Small crossed the room to close the window. Let the outside world remain the outside world for now. He wasn’t all that interested. He sat down and he opened a bottle of whiskey that he pulled from one of his drawers, drinking straight from the bowed out lip of the glass.

Briar was the first child in the town to fall ill. It was when Mr. Small was walking from his home to the Sunday market (he didn’t frequent it, but upon occasion he did take the time to peruse the wares around harvest time, especially) that he saw the exhaustion around Mary’s eyes when she looked at him. She hadn’t been at the inn the past few nights. She’d go for spurts like that, drinking her wine at home and bickering with Father Joseph. He never thought much of it but this time, he did. He did when she looked from her conversation with another one of the townswomen and there was bruising under her eyes. Not from being stricken, for Father Joseph never hit her. He might love her that much, at least. No, these were the bruises from having not slept and she dismissed herself from her conversation to speak with him.

“Rob.”

Words had not been exchanged beyond that as she collapsed against him. The notion of inquiry crossed his mind but she seemed to hear the words before they were spoken.

“Crish has been so sick.”

“So that’s what’s cost me my drinkin’ buddy.”

She might have laughed in other situations. But she was so tired, she gave a weary huff against him. “We’re not even arguing. We’re just…” Calloused fingers pat the back of her hair as she slowly withdrew from him, looking across with a weary sigh. “Worried.”

“I could help,” as he spoke to her, voice low, proximity near, but he saw the shadow on her eyes. “You couldn’t help Briar. I… I don’t know if I want to take chances with my baby.”

She didn’t know it, but Mr. Small did. It was right of her to be protective of Crish. He would be her last baby. He’d… made sure of that, for her sake, at her behest. That was the only way. “I’ll… pray for him, Mary.”

Her arm hooked around his shoulders as they both walked towards the Sunday harvest market. “We both know that’s bullshit, Rob. But thank you.” She smiled. If nothing else, she was smiling, and Mr. Small smiled in response. “Really. Thank you.”

“Any time, Mary.”

Briar hadn’t recovered quite yet. Crish was ill. Soon enough, Mayor Bloodmarch was at his door, wringing his white hands and looking into familiar eyes. Mr. Small looked tired, but Mr. Small almost always looked tired. But the worry in Mayor Bloodmarch’s eyes grounded him quite quickly and he gave tired eyes a rub. Tired, hungover eyes. He really should drink more water.

“... Mayor?”

“Damien, please. Damien is fine. May I come in?”

A nod, Mr. Small drawing the curtain back to let in the light. It was afternoon. It was afternoon, and he had only just woken up to face the grim face standing at his front door, wringing his hands. “Don’t tell me…” His bones were grinding against one another as he lowered himself into a chair. He needed water, but he’d fetch it later.

“Lucien is ill.”

Muscles in his stomach clenched at the thought, the idea: Briar, then Crish, and now Lucien, and it weighed heavy upon his heart. Illnesses swept through small town all the time, children’s lives were claimed. Adults’ lives were claimed. But Mr. Small happened to know the nature of the game, but he was aware of the fact that suspicion was cast. Blame was cast. And he had a feeling the blame would fall upon him, running his hand along his brow. If it stopped with Lucien, maybe.

“Can you help him, Brother Small?”

Usually, Mr. Small would bother to correct him. But he didn’t. Usually, Mr. Small would invite Mayor Bloodmarch in. But he didn’t. He merely stepped back into his home, leaving the door open and allowing the other man to interpret that as he felt he could. It wasn’t really that surprising when he heard the heeled boots on the floor behind him.

“I couldn’t help Briar,” spoke the voice on an exhale, words like air. “Mary won’t even let me near Crish.”

“Yes, but,” and though he wasn’t looking at the mayor, he could nearly hear the anxiety edging in his voice, the sound of hands fidgeting, the waver in his voice, “you save Lucien. I’m sure you…”

“I don’t want a damn thing to do with this.” He was in a chair, three-quarters towards Mayor Bloodmarch as he lifted his eyes up. His fingers traced over his eyebrows, brows knit, slightly contemplative as he exhaled through his nose. “I’ve heard enough stories. Seen enough. Father Joseph is going to turn all of this towards witches. It will be a witch hunt, Damien. And I…” The bottle nearest to him was not empty. The bottle nearest to him was readily uncorked and amber liquid flew past his lips, teeth, tongue, and he swallowed. Once, then twice. “I don’t want a damned thing to do with it.”

Through the mayor’s nose came a song that was surprisingly small, not quite a squeak, but not quite a huff, but it was meek and it was smaller than Mr. Small was used to. Three hard swallowed and he lifted his head up to look at the man. His eyes were circled with darkness, hair unkempt, disheveled. More could have been asked of him, easily.

But it wasn’t. At least, not right now.

Mr. Small was in a bad sort and Mayor Bloodmarch, his friend, knew that for all the good Mr. Small had in him, he could not help any others when he was in this position. His worries about Lucien had to be put aside for a moment to make way for worry about Mr. Small.

“Robert.” The voice was different, and the address was changed, and Mr. Small ran his fingers through his hair. “I could draw you a bath. You seem in a poor sort…”  
His sound was a bit of a snort through his nose, a slight exhale. “Just a glass. Water. Just… drew some from the well over there.”

More likely than not, it would have been most cohesive to point in the direction of a large bucket that sat on his table. But his eyes merely shifted in that direction and Mayor Bloodmarch, finding a glass that was not decorated with the residue of Mr. Small’s alcoholism, filled it with water and brought it to him. And he sat across from the veteran, holding the glass out with both hands. Neither of the men spoke until the glass had been drained, set aside.

“... Please, Robert.” It was like snow laying across the richness of earth, those hand enveloping his. Then his eyes lifted up slowly, meeting those pleading with him, looking directly at them. “I am the mayor of this town. Do you forget that? Any suspicion cast upon you, I can…”

“No.”

Based on the response of the mayor, that may well have been the sound of a blade dragging across gravel, the scrape making him wince and swallow hard. Dark brows laid against fair skin tightened, the wrinkles visible in his forehead. Though the grip tightened, the hands slipped out and the veteran moved away. There was silence there before he quickly stood up and followed after. Another pass was not made to seize his person, but Mayor Bloodmarch was only a few strides behind.

“I am the mayor of this town,” and Mr. Small could hear the desperation in his voice, could hear the way it wavered--just as he could hear when the man was wringing his hands earlier, and he stilled his retreat for the moment. It wasn’t like he could really go anywhere, as this was his house--but. “Any accusations against you I can level…”

“Like you leveled the ones against you?”

Such merited an audible click as Mayor Bloodmarch snapped his teeth together, top to bottom, saw those fingers fidgeting with the edge of his clothing in anxiety.

“That’s what I thought.”

“Rumors, Robert, are not easily quelled. But accusations can be quieted. They can be invalidated, and that is part of my role as mayor. To keep peace.”

Fingers slid into the pockets of his pants as he turned to look at the mayor again, lips visibly downturned. “I don’t like accusations or rumors.” Then he was opening one of the cabinets, still speaking in that slightly irritated tone. Teeth pulled a cork from a bottle full of amber liquid before he takes it to his lips, expertly nullifying the effects of the water. Lips remained in a frown as Mayor Bloodmarch watched Mr. Small. “I don’t want to be involved in either. At all. You’re the mayor, sure. But Joseph has this damn town eating out of his hand. He says I’m a witch? The fucking town will burn me at the stake whether the arguably unreputable mayor says no or not.”

Heavy was the exhale and downturned were the eyes as the dark-haired man made his way towards the door with a few long-legged strides. “I see.”

The color had drained at so much of a mention of the allegations that still lingered against him, the rumors, and Mr. Small was aware of what he had done. Of the line that he danced across, expertly knowing how to step over it and back again with the grace of a dancer. But he may have flubbed the step at the last moment, he may have twined his feet in the line and stumbled for there was a light in Mayor Bloodmarch’s eyes that he was not familiar with, that wrapped around his heart and his ribs in a way that nearly ached. It was a light of hurt, and he hadn’t seen someone look like that at him in… some time. But he clenched his teeth, he exhaled through his nose and gave a shake of his head. “Y’know I didn’t mean anything by it…”

“No,” came the voice back, “I see where I am not wanted, Robert. I will have the congregation pray for Lucien, and we will call a doctor from another town that can attend to the sickness. Thank you for your time.”

And Mayor Bloodmarch exited the house that was probably too big for a singular person, letting the door click to a secure close behind him. Mr. Small bolted it once he was alone and attended to the recently opened bottle of whiskey.

Mr. Small was only trying to avoid a witch hunt. Perhaps his premonitions were a little more on the nose than he would have liked to admit.


	2. The Witch Hunt of Maplesborough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey yo its ya boy lyonheart here with chapter ii of the shepherd. still unbeta'd so keep that in mind as you read.

It didn’t end with three.

 

He wished it would have, for the sake of the town and for the sake of his own hide, but it didn’t. No amount of prayer. No quiet rituals on the night of the full moon warded away whatever this was. Mr. Small couldn’t recall the first time that he’d talked with God but he at least tried on one of those nights, the circle of twigs around him and his head hung down:  _ Spare the children. God, protect the children. Someone, protect the kids. _ But nothing came. The woods were dark and still, not even a rustle, nothing that his words had been heard by anything. Balled fists struck onto the earth before him and he was aware of a tear that fell upon it, his fist balled and the salt of his eyes danced along a scar that traveled from his thumb over the heel of his hand. 

 

Mary and Joseph’s Crish and Christie. Brian’s Daisy. Craig’s Briar and Hazel both, now. The schoolteacher’s son had been ill so lessons were postponed until Ernest Vega was up and healthy again. Lucien Bloodmarch was still ill, much to the worry of the mayor. It seemed all families in Maplesborough with children were impacted somehow by this malady, save for one.

 

Father Joseph stood before the congregation both unknowing and uncaring that Mr. Small slept in a closed circle in the forest. His eyes were heavy with his own lack of sleep, two ill children draining him, but he still managed. Those children that were sick were now quartered off together in an empty home in Maplesborough. Reaching the doctor the town over had proven more difficult than they had predicted. He hadn’t come yet.

 

“‘The Lord protects them,’” spoke his voice over the church of worried eyes, “‘they are counted among the blessed in the land--he does not give them over to the desire of their foes,’ so reads the book of Psalm: 41, ‘The Lord sustains them on their sickbed and restores them from their bed of illness.’ So let us bow our heads and pray to the Lord, our God, to save our children. Let us pray to the Lord, our God, to deliver us all from this illness that is shaking our town. And let us thank Him for the health we all have to be sitting here on this blessed Sunday, and let us thank Him for the good that he has delivered to us by way of our harvest.”

 

Heads were bowed in the church, hands held with those that occupied pews together as they spoke quiet prayers, quiet words, quiet ‘amens,’ in the prayer that Father Joseph led them through. The thanks and the requests. Because God must know his flock are thankful for what they have before he will grant their desires.

 

No one had thought to check on Mr. Small until after the services on Sunday. Major Bloodmarch had not spoken to him since he left that afternoon with frustration and anger in his heart. Craig had been far too busy with two sick daughters. No one noticed he had spent a few nights in the woods. For as much as he protested against it, Mr. Small made every attempt to help the town.

 

The favor undoubtedly wouldn’t be returned if he was found in a circle of mountain ash, sleeping in the woods, a hand full of crystals and herbs in meticulous placement before him. Doubly so when he was in need of a shave and a bath.

 

Maybe he would have slept for another day or two out there. Maybe he would not have woken up without someone calling him from this side. The maybes sounded in the thousands in his mind before he was wrenched back from sleep by the wound of someone calling his name.

 

Mary had come looking for him. If anyone, it would be her. “--bie. Robbie, please, wake up. Come on.” But she was not alone, for the cadence of a slightly lower voice chimed behind her: “Robert, please. We can’t cross the circle, and you know that. Robert!  _ Robert _ !”

 

The conversation came to him through a fog: “He’s not stupid enough to leave a circle open, Dames.” “It isn’t worth risking. I don’t want to cross it.”

 

The sounds of his spine popping is what drew their conversation to silence as he sat up, boot dragging out and breaking the mountain ash around him. Breath that was being held by the mayor was released as well as his tight grip on Mary’s arm.

 

“Robert! How long have you been out here?  _ What _ have you been doing out here?”

 

“We’ll deal with it later.” 

 

It was Mary who crossed the threshold of the circle. It was Mary who hefted Mr. Small to his feet as she had done in the past--usually due to one too many drinks, leaning on on another as they made their way to their respective homes. This was the first time he clung to her quite like that, though. This was the first time he gripped the demure brown of her apron quite like that, but she didn’t let her mind linger too much on it. 

 

Temptation tasted on the back of the mayor’s throat to speak of the concern of suspicion, the worry of being called as a witch, how  _ this _ behavior would only increase the risk of allegations in his direction. But he thought better of it. Mr. Small had been in a sour sort since the last time they had spoken and judging by this erratic behavior, such had not changed.

 

Boots that were too fine and too heeled to usually be used for backwoods traversing drug over the circle to blend it back into the earth, scattered the herbs to the wind and gathered the crystals into the depth of a waistcoat pocket (brilliant purple, for which Mayor Bloodmarch was known.) 

 

Mr. Small observed his all with eyes half-mast and lips downturned until he spoke: “How did you know where to find me?”

 

His weight was shifted on the woman who supported him and she huffed. “Robbie. I’ve known you since you came to Maplesborough. We drink, we talk. You think I don’t know where you open your circles by now? Give me at least a little credit.”

 

Despite himself, he smiled--and with evidence of the circle destroyed, the triad made their way as subtly as possible to the home of Mr. Small.Through a back door. Mayor Bloodmarch set about drawing a bath while Mary set about affixing the man as upright as possible to trim the growth of his beard. Not shave it completely, though. Mr. Small looked strange without a bit of hair growth on his skin. She’d only seen him like that once and demanded he never do it again.

 

The razor drug over his hair with a practiced and precise hand, wiping the lather onto a cloth that rest in her lap, and she looked at the eyes that seemed to just now be coming into focus. “Father Joseph has called for a town meeting.” That was the explanation. That was the reason that they had come looking for him. His absence at the town meeting would be suspicion.

 

All at once he wanted to damn them both but thank them for at least showing some inclination towards his well being. “That’s why you came looking for me.” It was obvious. Tired eyes looking at Mary as her hands stilled. 

 

“That,” she pushed his head up so he was looking forward again, “and the fact drinking alone is just sad.”

 

“The tub is filled.” Heels clicked on the floorboards. Mayor Bloodmarch hard returned to once again grace them with his regal presence. “Brother Small, if you--”

 

“Why.” His voice was gravel, grating. Mayor Bloodmarch winced. “Why did Joseph call a town meeting?”

 

Mary had raised the razor but now lowered it again. Glances were accusatory from Mr. Small, shifting from the mayor to the priest's wife. “What does he know?” The tone was just as accusatory and the mayor even flinched. “ _ You _ , you said--”

 

“I don’t know what he knows, if he knows anything. He’s all bullshit sometimes. You know that about him, Robbie. You know…” but Mary was silenced when Mayor Bloodmarch raised his voice, hands clasped firmly in front of him. “Prayers haven’t healed the children and we cannot seem to reach Doctor Graves. Father Joseph seems… He seems suspicious. He seems to have… an… idea in his head, and I’m afraid it may not pan out for anyone acting at all out of the norm.”

 

A hand had taken from Mary the sharpened blade. He drug it along his chin with no mirror, but a practiced hand. “Good for me. I never act within the norm so there’s no norm to really judge me by.” He’d gotten maybe two swipes along his stubble-specked jaw before Mayor Bloodmarch reached over him and gripped to the handle of the razor.

 

“The water will get cold. Go.”

 

Mayor Bloodmarch wiped the lather from the blade and placed it away with delicacy in the box wooden box that Mary had drawn it from. “Mary, if you would please.” Mr. Small had already begun undoing the ornate silver buttons with little to no mind as to the presence of a woman, and a wedded woman at that, but the mayor kept about him enough with to know what was acceptable and what was not. Mary did too, even if she often acted against them. But there were limits, and the sun was still up, so she nodded to Mayor Bloodmarch.

 

“I’ll leave you boys to it, then.”

 

So did Mary take her leave as the mayor tended to undoing the laces of the off-white undershirt that the veteran garbed himself in. Maybe it was… supposed to be white, once. An expression less than favorable crossed the face of the mayor in that moment, but he found himself face to face with the bare chest of the man before him. Just as bespeckled with scars and thick with hair as he recalled. Habits died hard and decency mandated that Mayor Bloodmarch turned his eyes away, placing the clothing on the back of a vacant chair. “I’m sure you can attend to the rest of it yourself, then.”

 

“I don’t recall you bein’ so shy before you ran off to the south, Damien.”

 

Color danced across cheeks of ivory, “I did not  _ run off _ . You know what happened, and you know exactly why I came back, and I don’t… appreciate you--implying otherwise. Bathe. Now.” These were words spoken normally with whiskey on Mr. Small’s breath but this? This was abnormal. But Mr. Small was in a bad sort, so the mayor merely lingered with back turned. His fingers toyed with the fabric of his own clothing once again. “I will take my leave. You would do well to mind who you speak too, Robert, and mind who saved you when you needed it.”

 

“Who said I needed it?”

 

Like a knife did it strike between the shoulderblades of the mayor as he stood with his hand on the door. “Maybe  _ you _ didn’t. But we did, Robert. Please be safe. Be careful. And be at the church at midday, Robert--to keep accusations off of you.”

 

“Yeah.” But the door had already closed by the time that he made any sort of vocalization. The mayor was gone, and he was left alone, and there was a creeping anxiety that boiled up in the back of his throat at being alone. He didn’t particularly like it. He didn’t particularly feel like it was the best idea at this moment but to ask it of the mayor to stay seemed even less palatable than being alone. So he said nothing and stood there as the door closed behind the departing man. And when he finally crossed to his tin tub and dipped his fingers below the surface he found that Mayor Bloodmarch had been correct: the water was indeed cold by now.

 

 

Maplesborough did not have a town hall. Town wide meetings were held inside of the church buildings, on the rare occasion that they transpired.  This was the first time Mr. Small had been in the hallowed halls of the Maplesborough’s church in years, and as he lingered before the arching wooden doors inlaid with cross-shaped glass windows, he stopped. Inside of his mind churned the idea of merely turning around and going back to his home, but as the doors opened, he was jolted from any reverie that threatened to drown him. He was jolted from said reverie by the image of the town priest before him, clad in snug-fit brown waistcoat over a shirt that was far too white. Mr. Small squinted against it, swearing the sound of the open doors ran into his teeth and down his spine.

 

“Brother Small!”

 

That smile made him sick, if he wasn’t already sick. He hadn’t eaten. He’d only filled his belly with more whiskey and made his way to the church after running a comb through his hair and sitting in a vat of cold water. That had sobered him up, and sobriety was a problem he promptly fixed. Especially knowing he would have to face Father Joseph.

 

“What a blessing to have you back under the church’s roof. I’m only sad it isn’t for a proper service.”

 

Father Joseph’s hand extended to land upon the veteran’s shoulder. The man shirked away as though the hand would burn him. It wasn’t treatment that Father Joseph was a stranger to from Mr. Small, but some part of him still ached at it, his broad smile down turning into a more forlorn expression. It may not truthfully be sadness, but it at least resembled it, and let his hand fall back to his side.

 

“I’m only here for the meeting, Joseph. Not for you, and not for your church.”

 

The fact that Father Joseph could probably look the Devil himself in the eye with a smile always made Mr. Small’s stomach clench up. So he stared at those high cheekbones and the muscles as they drew into a smile. It made him nauseous. Everything about Father Joseph made him feel physically unwell and standing across from him--it was torture. It was ice in his veins. 

 

“ ‘With man, this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’ Matthew 19:26. Even the most lost among a shepherd’s flock can be saved.”

 

“I’m not part of any shepherd's fucking flock. I’m here for the town meeting and that’s it. I don’t want to be saved. Not by you, or anyone.”

 

“Then you are the first to arrive,” spoke the priest as he took a few long strides backwards between the pews. The light shone through stained glass windows and painted the vacant seats, with their hymnals, with their books of prayer. As Mr. Small entered, he felt his nose wrinkle at the familiar scent. At the way the colors lay on the pews. He knew it well. Many an afternoon did he spend sitting here with no companionship but Father Joseph, speaking forlorn tones of the loss of Marilyn. She was buried in the town’s cemetery, a large clearing in the wood where nothing sprung from the grown but headstones. Marilyn Small was there, with her birth and death years. ‘Loving Wife and Mother.’

 

He wondered, would he be buried next to her one day, with ‘Loving Husband and Father’ beneath his name? What a crock of bullshit. 

 

“Brother Small.”

 

“Cut it with that shit. I’m no Brother of yours. Robert. My name is goddamned Robert.”

 

“I must ask you not to blaspheme in the house of the Lord,” and he heard the creak of Father Joseph’s fine shoes on the floorboard behind him, he felt the cold creep up his spine and into his senses. A hand rubbed the back of his neck. He could really use the warmth of whiskey right now and here he was without his flask. “Robert.”

 

He tasted bile and he wanted to vomit. His stomach clenched when he heard that name on Father Joseph’s tongue as though it held no consequence. “On second thought, Brother Small is fine.”  _ Just don’t say my name ever again like you have the right to _ . It unsettled him greatly that he appeared to be the first to arrive and no one else had yet arrived to offer any sort of negation to the fact it was him and Father Joseph alone in the church illuminated by stained glass windows. His stomach churned any time the blond man looked at him. 

 

At least he didn’t reach out to touch him again, merely lingering a few strides behind him. 

 

Mr. Small would never know what would happen next had he simply remained there in no company but the priest for--blessed indeed--Mayor Bloodmarch joined them and soon after did a few others. It was as though life itself breathed into the room as Father Joseph navigated with light steps past Mr. Small to stand at the front of the room, behind the pulpit draped in shining silk fabric embroidered with a white cross, a white cross that mirrored the one atop the church. It made Mr. Small sick the way he looked over the gathering as it grew, with the light in his eyes, with happiness, who the hell did he think he was fooling, other than himself? 

 

“Thank you,” as his voice filled the room, as his voice quieted all that was going on about him and Mr. Small was painfully aware of how he had been  _ staring _ at Father Joseph, standing there before them illuminated by the light of day. He remembered soft hands over his chest. He remembered gripping goldenrod locks in his fingers and raking nails against scalp. He remembered the holy man’s hands around his throat and the low speech that melted over him like wax and he was furious that Father Joseph stood before them, unphased. “Thank you for gathering here. I am afraid that the news I am to share with you is not good. Mayor Bloodmarch,” and one perfect, soft hand extended towards the mayor and it made Mr. Small’s blood boil, “please step up with me.”

 

Eyes cut with near suspicion as he watched Mayor Bloodmarch rise from the pew over from him. The mayor didn’t look back at him and it was in this moment that Mr. Small realized with a rock-like weight in his stomach that he had known more than he had initially implied. He was going to have to throw up after this. He felt it, and tasted it in the back of his throat already. Maybe that was why he was so dogged about Mr. Small appearing at the town meeting.

 

“I am afraid,” and his voice had a strong resonance to it that was almost uncharacteristic of the mayor, so rarely was he obligated to speak so, “that this may not be any ordinary illness. There may be dark magic in Maplesborough and it was our good Father Christiansen who brought it to my attention.” Mayor Bloodmarch much have been trying to protect him. Mayor Bloodmarch must have known. While he was thankful for  _ that _ , at least, he was still at least a little bitter that he had not been informed of a little more on the front of accusations.

 

There were mumbles and whispers in the pews as the priest stood alongside the mayor one more. Glances were cast around. “Yes,” spoke the priest. “I hoped it was coincidence. I was only going to mention it in a town meeting as a possibility, but…”

 

“I hoped it was nothing as well, however…” Mayor Bloodmarch drew from the depths of a purple brocade waistcoat a stone that made Mr. Small’s stomach drop. It was the twine that he had disposed of outside of the inn. The stone that he had removed hurriedly from the remedy that he had given to Briar in attempts to heal her. “This was found outside of the inn...” Above his head was he held to show all those in the town. At least a half-dozen sets of eyes turned towards Mat, “I thought it may just be a trinket. A child’s bracelet. But there was more. In the forest--I found this.”

 

Mr. Small’s stomach dropped to his feet as he watched casting stones and bound herbs be emptied from his pocket onto the pulpit. The only reprieve he had was that at least he knew that Mayor Bloodmarch would not frame him, but…

 

“I found this in a circle of mountain ash.”

 

He really wanted to vomit. 

 

“Accusations are frighteningly things, but we must place the well being of our town above all things.” It seemed that the mayor had no desire to cast the final blow and even turned his head away. Mr. Small was aware of the fact that Mary stared with slightly wide eyes at Mayor Bloodmarch and her husband alike. He kept his eyes down, now, like many others in the church. No one wanted to look. No one wanted to believe there was anything afoot but an illness. “We cannot allow witchcraft in Maplesborough. All our souls will be at risk… as well as our children. Who would call this down upon us?”

 

Mat looked about as nauseous as Mr. Small was, but neither of them looked at one another. The innkeep seemed to be intently watching the color drain from his knuckles. 

 

“Mat Sella.” Mr. Small saw the man jump. “I am afraid that until we can sequester the blame from you, you are hereby under arrest.”

 

There was life, now, in the town meeting, people that spoke in protest and even some that stood; a hand pointed at Mat and a chorus of voices sang,  _ Witch, witch _ , and Mr. Small shut his eyes tight with his head bowed. Those were his casting stones, his herbs. Mayor Bloodmarch had laid the blame upon someone else in the town to save him and he felt positively sick. And just as he had predicted, the town was quite willing to blindly follow the words of their mayor and more importantly of their priest, standing before the town with casting stones misattributed to someone else. Mayor Bloodmarch had framed Mat Sella for the witchcraft he knew was attributed to his friend. Honestly, Mr. Small could not decide what made him more sick. This entire town meeting…

 

“I must ask everyone,” as the priest’s voice served to silence the ruckus that had emerged upon the announcement that Mat would be arrested, “to be mindful. To be careful. Please, in this time of need--remember we are a community. A family.”

 

The town meeting was dismissed. Father Joseph saw to escorting Mat from the church to the small, one-room prison that was hardly ever used in Maplesborough.

 

Mr. Small seized the arm of the mayor and hissed that they needed to talk.

 

The mayor’s house felt tired, and it felt empty; it felt quiet, and it felt strange as he entered a few strides behind the owner of the home. The door was closed behind him and within moments he spoke: “How long have you known?”

 

“About what, exactly? Sit down, Robert--”

 

“How long have you know about my  _ witchcraft _ , Damien? Long enough to frame Mat--”

 

“Robert, please. Sit down.”

 

And he did, slowly, easing himself down into the plush, crimson couch that the man furnished his house with. The mayor tended to putting tea on before he even turned to look at the veteran who was seated upon his couch. He didn’t sit. That made Mr. Small nervous.

 

“I realized it when I came back from the south. I caught onto small things--I’d watched the workers on the plantation, the way they moved. The things they hid. I learned. And I saw similar things in you.” He didn’t sit, but he perched slightly on the arm of the couch. “They carried certain stones. They shirked their duties during certain phases of the moon and stayed out all night. It was… different. It is different, I’d assume, but I learned. So when Mary said you had been missing for a while, and you were not in your house… I was worried.

 

“That’s why I was not surprised to find you in a circle.”

 

Mr. Small held his head in his hands as an exhale sounded from him. All the attempts. Every bit of it to hide anything. He still felt sick, and he was sure it was starting to show on his face that nausea creeping back up from his stomach. He’d need an entire bottle of whiskey to negate the bile that he tasted on his tongue at this point. “So you framed Mat.  _ Mat _ ?”

 

“It--it just fell into place.” There was a tremor in the mayor’s voice as the veteran raised his head to look directly at him, not quite accusatory but with a flame alight in his eyes. “His is one of few families without a child that has fallen sick…”

 

“His family is  _ him _ and  _ his daughter _ , Damien! Would you have framed Brian if Daisy wasn’t sick?”

 

“It was your head on the chopping block if I did not divert Father Christiansen’s suspicion to someone! What would you have done? I know you mean nothing malicious. I am trying to--protect you, Robert. If Father Christiansen knew…” 

 

“I would be the one in prison instead of Mat. And what about Carmensita while he’s in there? --Damien, I can’t believe it, you--”

 

“You didn’t do anything to hurt the town, did you?” Silence was uncomfortable, heavy upon their shoulders and there was a loud inhale from the veteran. “Did you?”

 

“I didn’t do anything to hurt the town on--on purpose, Damien.” The muscles of the mayor’s throat contracted as he swallowed hard enough for Mr. Small to see it on his features. Onto his hands did his gaze soon enough fall, tracing over the cuts, the callouses, the scars that littered the tanned skin before his eyes, running his thumb over a scar. “Someone asked a favor of me, so I helped them. And I’m… scared it may have had side effects.”

 

“ _ Side effects _ ? What did you do? You have to--tell me what you did, Robert. Please.”

 

His head was in his hands. His exhale was heavy as he spoke, muttered, against the flesh of his hands’ heels, “Mary… came with child.”

 

“You  _ didn’t _ .” There was hardly time for so much as a breath to be drawn between the statement and the retort, a fair and slender hand resting against the fabric of his doublet: “Robert, tell me you didn’t.”

 

Weary was the head that lifted, exhaustion in his eyes and every fabric of his being. “What was I supposed to do. What was I supposed to do, Damien? She wouldn’t… She pled with me. She cried. After what I did, what else was I supposed to do?”

 

“You’re letting your past rule you, Robert, you can’t…”

 

“I can’t bury my past like you fucking did!”

 

The room felt cold to begin with. Now it was as though the room was entrenched in the frigidity of winter and all the air had been removed from it, the two men rent within a box of their own sins. Mayor Bloodmarch’s eyes were wide as he looked at Mr. Small, whose expression was grim and whose hair seemed greyer than it would have been before. Neither seemed willing to break the silence, and that was probably for the best at this particular moment.

 

“You told me you would never speak of it. You gave me your word. You were the first I told…”

 

“Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out? Suddenly the former mayor disappears. Suddenly his chronically ill sun is well enough to take over his position. Did you really think I wouldn’t find it out? I wasn’t going to tell anyone. I haven’t even told Mary; I don’t know if you have told her if you’re going to lie to her like you have lied to everyone else, but I know where the mayor’s son really is, Damien, and he’s not standing in front of me.”

 

The mayor’s intake of breath was sharp. Upon both of their shoulders was a weight of secrecy that they hardly ever shrugged, and the attention of Mayor Bloodmarch was pointedly directed anywhere but the war veteran who sat upon his couch. Maybe now. Maybe now they were both aware of the secrets that were just below the surface of Maplesborough that were best buried--not unlike the son of the mayor that Mr. Small had referenced before. High-pitched whistling broke their self-imposed pact of silence and started the mayor from whatever direction that he gazed off to, prompting him into the kitchen. Mr. Small took this as his cue to depart, which he did, through the front door as the mayor called after him.

 

But he didn’t make it far. Today seemed to be a day that the man was most certainly targeted with near pointed aggression, and with his head firmly affixed downward he was cognitive only of a grab to his arm and only after the fact alerted to the fact that someone had spoken his name. “--ther Small. Brother Small, if I may have a word?”

 

Suddenly the urge to rend his flesh that was touched overcame him as soon as he realized whose hand lay upon his arm. He aggressively tore his arm from that hand which held him, frustration upon his features as he found himself staring at Father Joseph. “What.” It was not an inquiry. It was only a statement as he looked at the man, illuminated in the bright light of the day with golden hair shining and it made his stomach sick. 

 

“It would be best to speak of this in private.” He seemed nonplussed. He seemed completely and utterly nonplussed by the downright violent outburst, by how hard his arm was yanked away. “I would suggest the church, but--”

 

“Anything you have to say to me can be said before the town and God, I’m sure.”

 

“Robert, please.” Something oddly ernest sounded in the words and he wasn’t sure why or how he was so easily swayed--he damned it, quietly, in the back of his mind--but he was, and so he moved down the way from the mayor’s house towards his own. And he nodded for Father Joseph to follow. “I’m glad to see you are doing well. I feel like I don’t see you as often as I used to…”

 

A grunt sounded as the response before he finally articulated himself. “There is one condition to me letting you into my house. You cut the small talk and don’t try and keep appearances behind closed doors.”

 

“I don’t know what you mean.” But the priest was quiet after that and Mr. Small opened the door, inviting the man in with a nod of his head. It felt wrong. Something about it felt so uncomfortable, standing in his small house still with a painting of Marilyn on the wall, it felt wrong having Father Joseph standing there, in the house where she had once stood. “Brother Small?”

 

“Don’t.” Already there was whiskey in one hand. Already Mr. Small placed a hand to his forehead and sank into one of the more plush chairs in his main room. How he had even grabbed that bottle so rapidly, Father Joseph was not sure of. Maybe it had been waiting in the chair for him, eager for his return. “Don’t say my name. First. Last. Don’t give a shit. Don’t call me anything. Don’t need to when we’re in conversation. Say what you need and get the hell out of my--”

 

“I know you’re hiding something.”

 

Mr. Small sucked in a breath through his teeth.

 

“Please. You know I am here for you, I am here for everyone in my town, for all of those in Maplesborough. I only ask us all to be safe, to be a community. I miss the feeling of unification. Your animosity only hurts the town. I...” But something stopped Father Joseph. Those eyes lifted up to look at him, the brows were creased, a hand ran over an open mouth and he made a small grunt of displeasure. “What?”

 

“If you were so worried about your town, and your precious flock, maybe you should have thought of that before you fucked one of them. A man, no less. Behind your wife’s back. Maybe you should have thought of that before--”

 

“I know Mat Sella isn’t the witch, Robert.” How many front-flips could a single man’s stomach do? Mr. Small had long ago stopped keeping count as he looked up at the priest, as his pupils dilated wide with the brown rings nearly disappearing. It was like there was no iris to be seen. “I need you to help me find who it is. I need this town to work together so we can find who is hurting our children.”

 

Calloused fingers threaded through his brown hair, gripping it. Tilting the bottle to his lips. Maybe the burn of whiskey could do something about the sour taste in his mouth, maybe the bite would bring him back. Hell, he could hope. Hope was really all that he had left in this disparate moment, with Father Joseph standing before him in the dingy light that came in through uncleaned windows. He wasn’t bothered by the grime. He didn’t care. 

 

Whiskey didn’t help and he inhaled deeply. “Why would I help you? How the hell would I help you?”

 

“I’m only asking people that I know I can trust.”

 

It was worse than the scrape of metal on a plate. It was like the sound of a knife dragging along the inside of his skull and it raked against him and made him grab onto to bottle like it was the only lifeline he had. And it was, in a way. It was the only thing that grounded when when that voice threatened to poison him, saccharine, sweet. People he knew he could trust. “Then why are you asking me?” Words were flavored, tinged with defeat, they came on an exhale. He looked away from Father Joseph. He had to. 

 

He knew what would come next and he was not prepared to hear it while seeing those oceanic eyes turned upon him:

 

“Because I trust you, Robert.”

 

If the veteran was running a tally mark on the number of times that he tasted vomit on the back of his tongue, he was sure he would have had to move to a second stick to notch. Maybe it was because of the fact he was guzzling whiskey like water, but it was probably the words. Mr. Small was going to blame the words more than the whiskey because the whiskey was the constant while it was the words of the priest that served as the current nausea equation’s variable. His nails clicked against the glass and he pushed up from the chair, still holding the bottle, running a thumb over it. Dirt lingered under his nails. Details like that tended to be forgotten when Mr. Small was in a bad sort. Nobody blamed him and most people simply turned a blind eye to the behavior. Mayor Bloodmarch sat down every once in a while and helped out, but he was quite distracted with all the chaos that shook Maplesborough. Father Joseph just watched him with creased brows and concerned eyes.

 

Then he stopped watching. Then he placed a hand on the slope of the veteran’s shoulder as if to test the tumultuous waters that were the humor of Mr. Small. He did not immediately withdraw or shrug it off if only because he did not, could not quite place any inarguable interpretation of the actions. Mr. small just let the hand lay there, on the shoulder of an unkempt off-white shirt and charcoal waistcoat. And they stood in this dingy light in this dingy house. For a moment, Father Joseph wondered what it had been like when there was light and life in the house, but he dare not ask Mr. Small such a question out of respect for the dead.

 

‘Loving Wife and Mother.’ Mr. Small took another drink from the whiskey bottle before he managed to cast a look over his shoulder at the priest. Anger coursed through his veins at the fact even here in the murky light of uncleaned windows, even here in the house that was dim and disheveled with hurriedly hidden casting stones and herbs(--he hadn’t done that. Someone else must have attended to that while he was missing. Even his broom was hidden--), Father Joseph seemed to shine. Maybe it was truly the holy light of God. Maybe he looked upon the messiah of his time with that backwards glance, fingers going limp around the whiskey bottle.

 

It hit the floor. It didn’t break, but it did spill. Neither the first nor the last whiskey bottle that would fall upon the floor with contents of amber filling crevices of wooden flooring. When the light was good and clean, the stains on the floor were visible. That was almost why he kept the windows dirty. Cleaning also took an insurmountable amount of effort when his mind was as it was, and with Father Joseph here…

 

Well, things really could only get worse.

 

Usually, Father Joseph would take a step back to avoid whiskey spilling onto rather nice shoes, but the spill ebbed in the opposite direction. There was really no need for him to move. Mr. Small almost hated that. What could have been the perfect excuse to have his personal space relinquished had now gone to waste. “I can’t help you.” He wasn’t aware of saying the words. They came from his mouth like a breath. “And I want you to leave my house.”

 

Father Joseph was not a man who was used to being told no by those in his company, all excepting Mr. Small. The words were not as much of a shock as they could have been. He took a quick inhale, yes, but he did not drop his hand from where it rest upon the shoulder of the veteran. “Why would you defend a witch—”

 

“Whatever the hell my motivations are, they’re none of your business. Now leave my house.”

 

Far be it from the priest to bow out with no argument. Mr. Small would have been far more surprised if he had done so. He expected at least a little pushback. But he did not receive it. The hand fell from his shoulder—again. It was becoming a familiar situation, the weight of the hand removed from his shoulder for one reason or another. It made Mr. Small turn to face him.

 

In all the years he had known the man, he never knew if he was intentionally manipulative of his emotions or not. It made him hard to read. Hard to decipher. It pissed Mr. Small off to no end about him.

 

“I understand. It was foolish to ask, and I realize that… but I still had hope.” God, the face glowed dimmer now, alight with sadness that dripped from the words like a thick and bitter brew. “I hope God will help you see the light of forgiveness over damnation. We are all loved by him.”

 

“You cheated on your fucking wife with me,” his feet found a puddle of whiskey he probably would never bother to clean up. Let the wood soak it up. “And I was stupid enough to believe that you cared. You’re too self-righteous. You’re too holy. You love God more than you love the damned world around you and I didn’t see it because I…” his thought was like static in his mind the moment that eyes met, blue against brown, stilling chapped lips. Why couldn’t he think? He wanted to think. He wanted to talk. But there was nothing in his mind but a vast chasm of silence. It was like any cognition was negated by those eyes. “I…”

 

Something felt wrong. Something felt strange. Something deep within his core was unsettled and he looked away from those blue eyes and took a steady inhale. “Joseph--”

 

It was as though every thought that existed rushed in bright flares of sound and color in his mind, everything alight, everything alert as the distance between them was cleared.  Hands gripped his newly cleaned hair, his close, whiskey’s taste was muted by a taste he could never describe in words except with a name and he knew it coursing through his veins.

 

Father Joseph had kissed him, with all the ferocity that he recalled the man to kiss with. His face was tilted up. The man had seen to that before even pressing their lips together. Hands found purchase on the table behind him before they found any grip on the priest before him, but he squared his jaw and bit at familiar lips to force the other male to withdraw. “What the fuck are you--”

 

“Please.”

 

Damned if his heart didn’t drop into his stomach, or perhaps even lower. Damned if it was not shock therapy to every sense that he had. Like lightning that bloomed across his shoulders, down his fingers, his legs.  _ Please _ . Scarred fingers trembled as they released the wood of the table and seized hard to the fabric of the waistcoat worn over the too white shirt. Too pristine. Too pure. Too fucking good for him.

 

Father Joseph was far too good for Mr. Small, and he knew it, but he melted into those hands and yielded anything to him. It was not the devil but the holy father that spoke with a forked tongue in this instance, that lead the veteran from the righteousness of his mind that told him to stop. So he gripped the fabric with his scarred hand and caved to the whims of the priest.

 

He caved to the whims of the beautiful blond too-good priest that pushed him against the table and lifted him with ease until he sat on the tabletop. He caved to the whims as hands that were perhaps a bit too expert at undoing the buttons on the front of his less well-kept clothing. Father Joseph positioned his hips with expert precision between knees that he maneuvered open, movements precise and adept. It pissed him off, it ached deep inside of him but he inhaled, a quick breath in through parted lips before he pulled his lips away, before he turned his eyes to the opened, dingy window, with the dingy curtains that were probably only drawn back because Mayor Bloodmarch had done it earlier. “The curtains--” were words that only escaped parted lips because those that had claimed them earlier now navigated to his neck, the skin exposed only as laces of his shirt were undone. Father Joseph was too good at this. Father Joseph was far too good at this, but Mr. Small tightened his knees on either side of the intruding hips as if to still them. And his hands gripped to the shoulders, and gave a push. “Joseph, the curtains.”

 

Quick were blue eyes to take in the drawn curtains. Deft fingers reached beyond Mr. Small, over the table to undo the ties that were looped around hooks. “Those are the only one anyone could see us, at this angle. No one goes behind your house.” It was low against his ear, and God, Mr. Small realized exactly how it was that this voice could convert this entire town to praise any ludicrous thing. At least, if they heard it this way. The way he heard it, the way that made chills dance along his spine like garter snakes in the Spring season. He’d had something else to say. He had forgotten it in that moment.

 

Clothes were shed. Fingers knew every button, every divot entirely too well though the priest stayed mostly clothed. Power. Father Joseph had been fully naked the first time. This was not like the first time, with an aura that felt different, with splayed hands over his chest pushing him down upon the table. Boots were gone. Thumbs traced over his skin, a dark contrast, ivory and an earthy hue, a statuesque fairness against his tanner form, brushing over where the hair thickened between his navel and his pelvic region and his own scarred hand was firmly between his teeth. They flashed as he bit down when hands undid the laces on the front of brown pants. 

 

_ Just one more time. _ Mr. Small didn’t know if this would, in fact, be the one more time. If more one more times would trickle along. He’d known men like that, men that kept him a secret and came back a few times before they vanished. Some guys in his squadron. He was pretty sure they’d been shot. Mr. Small was no stranger to bedfellows of arguable repute and he was absolutely comparable. One night stands with the infrequent travelers that passed through Maplesborough. But there was something that was different about Father Joseph. A holy man with a halo of blond hair. Better than Mr. Small deserved.

 

He leaned over him. The table groaned beneath them. It was not accustomed to the weight, but the veteran had faith in it that it would not buckle. And he tasted the priest on his lips again, teeth grazing over his, the sensation of breaths and exhales from mere centimeters apart. Then Joseph’s lips found his throat, his collarbones. Lips found the divot above the collarbone that made him lift his hips up and pushed against anything for sensation. Hands and eyes explored chest and hips and anything he could touch and to say it took his breath away was an understatement. His mind was blank, nothing. All there was was the sensation of Father Joseph’s skin against his, the staggered breaths, the hands that liberated from his body the brown pants, laces undone, exposed now fully beneath those eyes. 

 

Father Joseph spent far longer in Mr. Small’s house than the man had originally intended to permit. Father Joseph was far too good at convincing anyone of anything.

 

 

Mat hadn’t made any protest, any argument. He had gone to jail, shaken, with no words to his defense. Mary was the first one that came to him, not opening the door. Maplesborough’s jail was usually left vacant. There was little to no crime in such a close knit town. Most reprimands were dealt with between the two parties. No need for judges or juries. And Father Joseph tended to act as both. It was surprising he wasn’t the jail keep. That was usually taken by volunteers, and Mary was the first one.

 

“Hey, sailor.”

 

She didn’t notice that Mat had been dozing, sleeping lightly. That was about all he had to do in the cell. That, and a much-read, well-loved Bible: Father Joseph insisted it be left there for all prisoners, on the rare occasions that there was indeed someone in there. 

 

“Not going for the reading material, huh?”

 

Friends was a debatable term, really. Mat and Mary knew one another from the rare social function that they crossed paths. And the church. But, mostly, from the bar. Mat knew the exactly which wines Mary favored and which whiskeys Mr. Small would down on the regular. 

 

“Well, now, who’s going to serve my drinks?”

 

What she got was a small laugh, a defeated laugh. She walked over and slid down the barred door, legs tucked at the knee, back primarily turned towards Mat. For some time, there was silence. She began to worry there would be nothing but. But there were sounds. There was speech, finally. It nearly made her jump. “You don’t think I’m a witch, do you, Mary?”

 

She swallowed hard, the lump in her throat going down rough. Who was going to tend to her wine needs now? She kept a few bottles in their own cellar, of course, but the social aspect was one of her favorite parts of drinking, and part of why she liked Mr. Small so very much. But to speak the truth would be contrary to her husband. While she was not too afraid of Mat using that against her, she still hesitated. How much did Mat know? What did Mat know that she knew, about him, about Robert? She was almost afraid to ask, so she didn’t. Finally, on an exhale, she spoke. “No.” Partly because she knew who the witch was. But even if she had not, Mat was a warm soul. A caring soul. Even if he was a witch (and unlike Father Joseph, she did not entertain the idea of witchcraft always being the devil’s work, of always making nothing but evil), he would not bring anything bad down upon the people of this town. He loved them, and she knew it. It was only luck that kept Carmensita from getting ill.  “And I don’t think Joseph really believes it either.” Speaking against her husband, and openly, may have earned her side-glances from other women in the town. But the man behind bars said nothing, probably affixing his gaze forward on his shoes. “If he did, he would have had more inspection done. Your house searched. Your body searched for the Devil’s Mark. Thumb screws. Some sort of confession, some sort of something—but he just put you in jail and hasn’t spoken of anything else, either to myself or to the Mayor. I don’t think you’re a witch. I don’t think Joseph thinks you are either.”

 

“Then—why?” His inquiry was quiet, and she heard his hands trembling in his voice and felt the deep ache in her heart. She couldn’t just let him out, as much as she wanted to. There was a line she could not cross, even with her position as the priest’s wife. Father Joseph served as judge and jury, while Mary served to support her husband in all he did. Sometimes, she hated it. This was most definitely one of those times. “Why me?”

 

Mary didn’t own a flask, but Mr. Small did. Mary borrowed it. It was the least he could do, considering she helped drag him from the forest and clean him up so he wouldn’t be the one in the cell. She hadn’t asked, but she had filled it with some of his whiskey, and after scanning their surroundings, she lifted it to her lips. “Because he suspects there is a witch in town.” Fire bolted through her mouth, down her throat, to her stomach at the first drink, so she took a second. It was just the two of them. Mat knew her vices almost as well as Mr. Small did, by now. “He thinks—hopes—framing you will bring them forward.” And it might. Mary knew the witch oh so well, and Mat knew him far better than he would expect, but Mr. Small was a subtle man prone to secrecy as it was. His practice was just another secret to those aside from Mayor Bloodmarch and Mary. Hell, he had thought it a secret to Mayor Bloodmarch until their conversation yesterday. But she had known he knew. “I wouldn’t be too worried.”

 

Silence filled the air between them: an impatient, heavy silence that was like a raincloud waiting to burst. At least, that was how it felt to Mary. She was relieved it was Mat who spoke, only the slightest inkling of apprehension in his cadence. “I… I just want to know that Carmensita is okay. She’s all I have left.” She recalled it. The funeral service for Rosa, after she had fallen ill when Carmensita was still young. The girl hid her face in her father’s clothing while Father Joseph spoke of the young family that had only recently settled in Maplesborough. That had been some time ago now, but Mary could not imagine the loss of a spouse. She and Father Joseph may not have the most loving of relationship, but the idea of losing him rent her heart to ache. He was a wonderful father to their children, and going on without him. She wouldn’t even entertain it. “The mayor has offered to care for her while you are being tried.” The words weren’t pleasant to say. She didn’t like saying them, the idea of Mat on trial for witchcraft. Especially when she knew the culprit. She knew the witch, but she didn’t… she didn’t think he had done any of this. At least, she prayed to God he had not been the cause of this. Children were still falling ill, so maybe that would work in the favor of Mat’s innocence. How could he be cursing people if he was within the cell, under watch? “He’ll treat her as his own. You know that.”

 

It was as though a wave of relief washed over the man in the cell and his shoulders sagged. “The inn…” Carmensita first. The inn second. That one, Mary did not have a resolution for. “I think the girls that you have help you—they are going to keep it up and running as best they can. Carmensita, too. She’s been helping your girls around the kitchen, hasn’t she?”

 

“Okay.” No thanks. Nothing. She pursed her lips, but she knew Mat did not intend to be rude. “I… that’s just, okay. They’re good girls. They’ll do their best. Please, Mary. Please make sure that Carmensita is okay. I would… wouldn’t be able to go on if anything happened to her, and, well, I’m sure you know, they’re all we’ve got, our kids. And I thought I was lucky she didn’t get sick. I thought I was so lucky, but no, no, I guess that’s wrong, and…” He was probably still talking, but Mary was no longer cognizant of it. Sips of whiskey had turned to gulps. There were occasions where she found it hard to focus on Mat’s rambling conversation even when sober, so the whiskey wasn’t going to help.

 

“It’ll be fine.” Mary was not, at this point, sure if she was reassuring him or herself. She wasn’t sure if he was still talking, or if he even was listening anymore. A splayed hand on the floor pushed her up from where she had sat, causing the dark eyes of the captive to follow her movements. (The captive. She didn’t like thinking of him like that.) “I’ve… gotta go grab you your dinner. I almost forgot.” The girls at the inn were taking care of feeding Mat while he was incarcerated. She was sure she could tip more whiskey into the bottle while she was there. She knew where Mat kept all the best stuff, after all. “I’ll be right back.”

 

“I’m not even hun—” but she was already gone, and Mat found himself left with his thoughts. He reached for the Bible if only to drown out the chaos of his own mind.

 

Most of Maplesborough slept. Carmensita rested in a bed more luxurious and plush than she was used to, draped in fine blankets and lent a satin dressing gown. It was entirely different than what she was used to. Both Carmensita and Mat lived in the inn, their living quarters attached to the building in the back. Satin dressing gowns and plush rugs were not a familiarity to but the richest in the town.

 

 

The gown had once belonged to the daughter of the former mayor when she was a child, kept in a hope chest that had surprisingly reappeared though Dahlia presumably remained wed to the wealthy land owner in the south. Mayor Bloodmarch didn’t think much of it as he dressed himself in a heavy woolen cloak. The nights were getting chilled, and he was going out. He turned the key in the lock behind him and departed down the walkway framed by leaves that were now yellow-gold and orange, his garden preparing to sleep for the winter. Lights in windows were snuffed out and the few that remained flickering would soon follow. He held in his right hand a lantern with a small, bobbing light. He stood before the church. A hand passed over the flame once, twice, thrice, before he moved on. Low did he whistle the Black Paternoster, a rhyme he’d learned long ago in Sunday School. The tune was cycled through twice, but the last line was left off the second time. This was about in tandem with him walking past the door of the veteran’s house. For the rest of his walk, he was silent.

 

The excuse was the he was the mayor, that he desired to know the safety of the town. The truth was that he walked beyond the boundaries of the town to a secret meeting place in the woods—a place that was not the same location as Mr. Small’s circle, seeing as now that place would be under scrutiny. “Follow the sound of the water,” were the directions the man had given him. And so he did until he heard the Black Paternoster whistled in the distance. Mr. Small.

 

“I don’t know why you picked that song, Rob.” Mary was there. He heard her on the wind. He had finished his walk through the town before dipping beyond the tree line, giving them both ample time to slip out. “You don’t believe in God or angels.”

 

“Maybe not in the way that most of the town does,” came the gruff response as Mayor Bloodmarch made himself known. “But I believe in at least one God and things that are at least sort of like Angels. I guess.”

 

Mary was the first to look at the mayor and remark on his arrival. “I was expecting fur trim. I’ve got to say, Dames, I’m a little disappointed.”

 

He snuffed the light burning inside of the lantern with quick puff of air, the small fire that Mr. Small had started to indicate their destination casting enough shadows for all of them. “It’s not cold enough for fur yet,” teased the mayor as he seated himself further down the fallen log from Mr. Small. Mary was seated on a large, gray rock. Mr. Small poked at the flame and none seemed willing to break the ice of the topic at hand, until it was the mayor who spoke, eyes alight with the dancing flame’s reflection. “What do we do?”

 

Mr. Small observed contemplatively the end of the stick he was using to jab at the open flame. It was alight, burning with the flame that ignited before him. “I dunno.” The stick was relinquished, tossed into the flame. He had another two or three by his side. Small kindling, as necessary. “We need to get Mat out. But I don’t think Joseph’s just going to let the man walk.”

 

Mary’s fingers were laced and laid neatly in her lap. She didn’t look at the fire: she looked at the two men before her and took a deep breath. “You don’t know Joseph like I do.” Mr. Small flinched, but she didn’t make note of it. “He doesn’t think Mat’s a witch. He’s trying to use Mat to scare out the real witch… or, something. I just don’t believe he believes, not really.”

 

“So he doesn’t trust my evidence.” Mayor Bloodmarch wrung his hands. “I was wary of that. It was… so circumstantial.”

 

“Good to know you’re shit at framing people. That’ll be useful to keep in mind in the future.” Somehow, the veteran managed to inject enough humor into the situation that Mary at least cracked a small smile. “We need to find some sort of evidence to the contrary before Joseph gets in in his head to start swimming the witch.”

 

Both his companions around the flame flinched at the mention of the torture. “He wouldn’t.” Mary spoke with reasonable certainty. “We need to either prove his innocence or… or someone else’s guilt. Or maybe, just maybe—the kids will be okay. Somehow. It’s just an illness, they’ll be okay. Right?”

 

That much was true. None of the children were deathly ill insofar as they were aware. There had been no deaths. There was joy and thanks to be had for that, and to say there were no small number of prayers stating that would be wrong. Father Joseph lead many a prayer regarding that to those that still attended on Sundays. 

 

“I’m not the kind of guy that believes in stroke of luck. Never have been. It’s always worked against me.”

 

“And there is nothing you can do?”

 

“Magic doesn’t have a role here. This is up to us. Besides, using magic to get out of this—seems a little counteractive, don’t you think?” His eyes lifted to look at Mayor Bloodmarch. “Like dousing a fire in lantern fuel.” Then he looked over at Mary. “I have no power here. Funny enough.” Self-jabbing humor was really the forte of the veteran, as it was. “The mayor and the priest’s wife are going to have to take the lead.”

 

“I’ve lived in Maplesborough my whole life. I don’t know how to test if someone is a witch.”

 

There was a grim tone in the Mayor’s voice as he gripped his hands together before his chest again. “I do.”

 

 

Father Joseph stated there were two reasons that he called another town meeting within a week’s time of the first one. Even the accused Mat was in attendance, seated in a wooden chair by the pulpit with his wrists bound. Mary stood to his left, seeming sleepless. Mr. Small was unshaven, sitting in a pew near the back. The goodly Mayor stood beside Father Joseph.

 

“Mat comes before us all today to proclaim his innocence of consorting with the Devil.” There were whispers. Words were hushed, behind raised hands one occupant of Maplesborough to the other. Whispers of witch. Whispers of doubt. The town seemed about as decided in it as they could be. After all, a sleepy little town like Maplesborough, cursed by a witch? “It is a tried and true staple that a witch cannot recite the Lord’s Prayer. It is in the Malleus Maleficarum. It is sanctioned by the very Church itself. So Mat claims he can stand before us and prove his innocence by reciting the Lord’s Prayer.” A few cast glances. The idea of Mat standing before people and speaking caught a few off guard, for he was meek and quiet, akin more to listening than to speaking, and that was known. But he stood from the chair and there was a breath held all through the room. Mat’s hand felt clammy and he flicked his gaze over the people, he swallowed hard. Mary saw the sweat beading on his brow before he bowed his head. He had that advantage, at least: it was a prayer. He did not have to look at anyone to recite it.

 

“Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in heaven.” A pause, an inhale. His fingers wiggled just a bit, still bound together before him. “Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, amen.” So far, so good. Mary felt the weight lifting off her shoulders and even gave a relieved exhale as Mat finished his recitation, flawless as a school child reciting simple poetry. “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. For ever and ever. Amen.”

 

Father Joseph turned his eyes to Mayor Bloodmarch. The priest nodded and moved to undo the ropes that served as binds--they didn’t have heavy chains or even metal. Just ropes. And as he was freed, the priest clapped a hand on his shoulder.

 

“I didn’t want to believe it, Brother Sella.” And Mat looked at him. “We are so blessed that it was in falsehood.”

 

Relief washed over the face of the mayor, signifying he was rather convinced this fiasco was over. However, Father Joseph spoke again and prompted the dark-haired mayor to grip at his cravat in shock. 

 

“I have evidence that there is someone else in this town who is the witch.” 

 

Mr. Small hadn’t paid much mind the the whole show of faith. At the mention of further evidence against a different culprit, however, his head lifted from its lulled stated and he looked pointedly at those clustered behind the pulpit. Whispers. A few shouts rang out, but by merely lifting his hands Father Joseph quieted them to a hushed murmur. It never failed have a staggering effect on Mr. Small just how much control this man had over the people of his town. But, he assured himself, Mayor Bloodmarch was working quite hard to make sure that he would not have suspicion cast upon him. And yet, Father Joseph’s eyes fell upon him. His blood ran cold as the priest stepped from behind the pulpit and walked between the pews. It was not direction at him and, God, he almost wished that it had been. At least then he would have a better gauge of what the hell his angle was. 

 

“It was as I walked through the town I spotted a window with curtains drawn back. I thought little of it until moment caught my eyes. It was a blessing from God and a sign from Him, for as I looked through the window of Brother Small’s house--” Mayor Bloodmarch visibly blanched, trying to be subtle about how tightly he gripped his hands together, “I glimpsed the man as he was changing.” Mr. Small felt the red of anger welling up into his cheeks, because he knew Father Joseph lied now before his parishioners and those that followed his lead. He had never known Father Joseph to blatantly lie before his churchgoers before. That may well be why he no longer stood behind the pulpit. Maybe the Lord was more scrutinous of liars that stood there. “I saw upon his shoulder the witch’s mark. The devil’s mark, left upon him during his consort with the devil.”

 

All eyes within the church turned to him, including Mary’s and the pale Mayor Bloodmarch. This time, there were no jeers. None spoke, and Father Joseph came to stand before him, indicating he rise from his seat in the pew. The woman that had sat next to him gathered up her child and moved away as much as the width of the wooden seats did allow. He thought of running, of sprinting out of there. But he was sure that would make everything worse in the end, so he rose from his seat with cold eyes looking at Father Joseph. Across his face was written that knowledge that Father Joseph was a damned liar, but the priest said nothing. 

 

“Brother Robert Small,” and every time Father Joseph called him Brother he felt the overwhelming urge to punch the man, but he said nothing and stood still as stone. “You stand accused of witchcraft, and how do you plea?”

 

“If I claim my innocence, I’m sure you’ll just find a way to frame me.” It was rare that anyone spoke out against Father Joseph, and the man nearly recoiled as though he had been stricken. “So do whatever you want, Joe. I won’t fight you.”

 

The priest swallowed hard but took an inhale through his nost, speaking with the grandeur command that people were quite used to hearing from him. “Then I hereby arrest you, Robert Small, on the accusations of witchcraft and consorting with the devil.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter iii and the thrilling conclusion coming to an archive near you on or before halloween!
> 
> (christianity is hard please bear with)


	3. The Resolution of Father Joseph

“It was my fault.”

Mary and Mayor Bloodmarch had retired to his house as soon as they feasibly could after the point of the town meeting. Mr. Small had been unceremoniously taken away and the first watch over him was taken by the carpenter, Brian Harding. The priest’s wife would have offered to take the first watch, and yet she had a nagging feeling that she would be politely denied. Just a hunch. So as soon as she was able to meander her way from beneath the scrutinous gaze of her husband, she found herself upon an elaborate couch in the home of the mayor. The empty home. Carmensita had already returned to her home with her father the moment he was released from custody. Lucien was still with the other sick children in their impromptu quarantine, thought it seemed the numbers had marginally slowed. Briar was even showing a great amount of recovery, for which Craig was very thankful.

But none of that was on the mayor’s mind as he shifted his weight onto the fainting couch positioned across from where Mary sat. She’d helped herself to the wine he kept around, pouring a glass as the mayor engaged in dramatics. She took a long, long drink.

“I pulled back his curtains. I thought… I thought the light would help him. I didn’t…”

“Blaming yourself won’t do anything. Rob’s not exactly the most cautious guy in the town, and if it wasn’t you, it would be something else. Joseph was also lying.” One knee crossed over the other beneath her long, black skirt as she cradled the wine in her hand. The glasses were fine crystal. Probably heirloom quality. She’d broken one of the set once, but Mayor Bloodmarch didn’t seem to mind. He wasn’t as adamant about his heirlooms as those before him. “He was bold-faced lying and I know it. He didn’t walk by Robert’s house. I saw him go inside.”

“What?” The mayor was borderline prostrate upon the fabric of the fainting couch, and he lifted his head. “You saw him?”

“You look like some spurned suitress. Sit up.” And the mayor did as she said, looking across at her. The alleviation of the guilt was helpful, true, but… “I saw Joseph stop Robert. I saw them go into his house together. I didn’t see them come back out. I got tired of waiting.” 

“You… think that…”

“He smelled like he has whiskey on his breath when he came home. Joseph has never in all of his days drank whiskey. I know that they had sex.” 

Mary’s words were crash for a woman, and the Mayor was well aware of that. He swallowed, visibly, still paled, still blanched from the town meeting as he looked across at the woman who spoke of it nonchalantly. “Doesn’t it hurt you?”

The air was cold for a moment as she raised the wine to her lips. “The first time, it did. I thought I would die. I thought I could never share a bed with Joseph again. But… at least it’s Robert. At least it’s my friend. Some women would hate that, but I… I’d rather it be Robert than some random. Than someone that just stopped by for the inn, for a night. I mean… at least there’s that.” She hadn’t noticed, but soon enough the wine was drained and she was faced with an empty glass. “It still hurts. But maybe a little less than it could have.

“Either way.” She rose from her seat, crossing to where she had left the bottle resting on a table. “I knew Joseph was lying. And in the church, in front of the whole town. It almost… didn’t feel right. That’s not like him. I think this witch thing has gotten him all worked up to the point he’s acting out of sorts.” Her glass was full again and one arm moved beneath her breasts, cradling the elbow of her hand that held the wine glass. “What do we do now, oh powerful mayor? Robert’s sitting in that cell with nothing but the clothes on his back and a Bible he’d probably sooner chuck at my husband than read.” And she wasn’t wrong. Mr. Small had rid himself of the family Bible at the death of Marilyn. It was buried with her. It had come from her side of the family, after all. “We have to prove him innocent of something he’s guilty of.”

Mayor Bloodmarch’s jaw clenched at the statement: she was not wrong. Mr. Small was indeed guilty of what he was accused of, that being witchcraft. “But,” as the mayor linked his long, slender fingers and gazed quite pointedly at them with brows drawn tight, “we can prove him innocent of what he has not done.”

“I’m listening.” 

His eyes were still focused on his hands as he spoke. “Father Joseph likens witchcraft to consorting with the Devil. Robert… doesn’t. He consorts with nature. He uses the Earth. Robert has no pact with Satan, so if we could prove his innocence of that.” 

Mary lingered before the fireplace, contemplative of the words. And she gave a low hum in thought. “A loophole. I like it. Rob doesn’t mess with the Devil. Rob doesn’t mess with demons, or anything that would hurt the kids in this town. He cares about the kids… he always has. I don’t think he would ever do anything to hurt them.”

“Nobody in this town would ever hurt the kids. But the whole town wants to blame someone, so someone cries witch, and they follow him. Joseph could tell half the town that the sky was purple and they would believe him. Or…” A cloud passed over her visage, and it caused Mayor Bloodmarch to look directly at her. “Or he’s trying to frame Robert for… something. A reason to get rid of him.”

“I don’t think Joseph would do that,” sounded the soft voice of dark haired man as he gave a weighted sigh. “I really don’t. Joseph isn’t a bad man, he never has been.”  
“I agree with you.” She came to sit by Mayor Bloodmarch on the fainting couch, taking a long draught from her glass. “Joseph… has made his mistakes, but he’s not a bad man. I don’t think it’s personal--I don’t think it’s a vendetta, or anything personal. Just… Rob’s good at being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

For a moment, the only sound was the wind against the windows, the sound of the trees scraping at the second story. The first few times, it had been unnerving. Now there was almost some comfort to it, it was a sign nothing was out of the ordinary. “Mary.” And she turned her attention from where she pointedly gazed at the wine that could not return her intense skepticism. “Joseph doesn’t know, does he?” A lithe-fingered hand reached over to grip hers that did not cradle the heirloom glass of the Bloodmarch family. “He is a good man, but--”

“No.” Her hand was occupied by the wine glass, but she managed to place the stem of it against the one that gripped her, bedecked in a few simple rings. “No. Nobody knows. Nobody but Robert and I know. Trust me, I’m all up on the town gossip. It’s what I do.” She managed a reasonably reassuring smile at the mayor, who returned one to her. Then he leaned his weight against her, a heavy sigh. “It’s okay. I wouldn’t… I would never hurt you like that.” And he closed his eyes, exhaling heavily. “I’ve got you, Dames. But now Robert needs us, and at least Joseph can’t use that against you.”

“Thank you, Mary.”

Silence this time, but more comfortable between them. It was not heavy, nor expecting. He merely lingered in Mary’s presence, the comfort that it was, the warmth. She was maternal. She always had been. “I miss Lucien, Mary. I miss the children.”

She let a sigh slip from her lips, taking another drink from the rich liquid before she spoke again. “I know. Lucien has been with you through quite a bit. I… I want Crish to be okay.” Maybe there was residual guilt in the back of her mind, a sour taste in the back of her throat. The loss of thee child was heavy on her. “I want my babies to be okay.”  
Shared was the sadness between the parents, the concern over their children—but even the mayor did not know the truth of the loss of Mary’s child. He had not been made aware of the pregnancy before the secret meeting between Mary and Mr. Small. In fact, it was only the two of them that were aware. Even Father Joseph had not known his wife was with child before the loss of it. “At least Mat is back home with Carmensita. Allow him his happiness, at the very least,” came the quiet voice of the mayor. “We are lucky that Father Joseph allowed Mat to choose the means by which he would prove himself innocent.”

“We are also lucky that on your plantation you dealt with enough witch accusations to know the ways to prove him innocent.” And that was the truth. In the Mayor’s time in the south, surrounded by the slaves, he saw them called as witches. He saw them in any state of dishevelment, attempting these tasks that were impossible to them due to their language gap, their inability to read, their reluctance to confess. They confessed, and they would die. He saw torture used for confession. Thumb screws and the God-awful swimming of the witch. He still had nightmares to this day. Mary heard about them sometimes, over brunches with the mayor himself while the children were in Mr. Vega’s schoolhouse. “But it just makes me believe that Joseph knew all along that Mat wasn’t a witch. He just wanted someone to blame. That someone is Robert now, and God only knows why.”

Her fingers were running through the mayor’s hair passively. It was the same thing she did when Christie was sleepless, early in the marriage when Father Joseph struggled to find sleep, she ran her fingers through hair to bring comfort, to bring relief. She was not sure why it worked, but it did, and she heard the mayor’s tired sigh against her. “We saved Mat, true. I am afraid saving Robert may prove more difficult than that.”

“I’d pay money to see him stand before the church and recite the Lord’s Prayer, but I am more inclined to say he’d let himself burn before he would stoop to that.”

“You are probably right.”

“We’ll get nothing done if we stay up all night, Damien. Get some sleep.”

“I don’t feel like I have slept since Lucien fell ill, but I will try. Sleeping on our current conundrum might offer insight sleeplessness cannot.”

The two friends parted for the evening and Mary drew her gown about her for warmth. The chill of harvest season would eventually give way to frost and snow, but not yet. Not quite yet. At least she prayed, not quite yet.

 

The priest, the carpenter, and the schoolteacher spent a day coming through the home that was occupied by the single veteran for any further sign of witchcraft and other devilment. Mr. Vega had initially protested his involvement, but he was the most learned of the town and could possibly identify things that Father Joseph couldn’t. Brian was in their presence because he had helped build the house before Mr. Small had come to the town and would be able to find any hidden traps, anything awry.

What the three were unaware of was the fact that Mayor Bloodmarch and Mary had beaten them to the house to eliminate as much evidence as they possibly could. Empty bottles (other than those notably identifiable as empty alcohol ones) were taken out and stones were removed to Mayor Bloodmarch’s house. Without plausible reason, it would be near impossible for Father Joseph to do any sort of investigation upon the mayor, and such was why he and Mary had deemed it best that the practice of Mr. Small’s witchcraft was consigned to his home and not hers.

“This is a trap door,” came the voice of the red-haired carpenter as he tapped his heel on one of the floorboards. He and the schoolteacher peeled it away to reveal a box. The box held bundle of letters and dried plants. The glint in the priest’s eyes made it look as though he had struck the final strike to find Mr. Small completely guilty of what he accused, but as they pulled back the curtains and looked upon the writing, they were old letters, faded from time, and the plants were dried flowers. Mr. Vega pushed his glasses up on his nose and read aloud from the letter.

“ ‘To my Husband on the day we are wed, I promise for-ever to love thee and pledge you my life…’ “ his lips pursed as he flipped to the second page. “ ‘To my Wife on the day we are wed, I pledge for-ever to protect and love thee…’ “ he read no further, turning to the third and final letter. He did not read it aloud, though two sets of eyes were fixated upon him as he rose, binding the three letters together once more. “These herbs are not herbs of witchcraft. They are the remains of Marilyn Small’s wedding bouquet and the wedding letters she and Robert wrote on their wedding day. Nothing more, and nothing less.” They were placed away, and the box was closed with a gentle hand. Brian replaced the floorboard and shifted his weight so the nail found its place. He set to knocking on the walls to find any other hideaways.

Upon entering, Father Joseph had been so sure he could find damning evidence to cement his accusations. Upon actuality, this seemed to not be the case. His lips were narrow, downturned at the edges. Much of the day was spent carefully examining, turning everything over. Brian was the brave soul that drank from one of the bottles to confirm it was in fact whiskey and not some sort of brewed potion. Hugo was the first to speak. “We have looked in every drawer and behind every curtain, Father. There is nothing that would confirm that beyond the shadow of a doubt Mr. Small is guilty of anything other than his own vices.”

“Thank you for your help, Mr. Vega, Mr. Harding. I will continue to look myself for a while. I am sure you both have far more pressing matters than this.” Mr. Vega spent much of his time as of late dealing with the sick children and doing as best he could to keep them intellectually stimulated—they were not quite lessons so much as it was reading, the occasional game. They were in no state to learn. The children who were well still sat with Mr. Vega on the steps of the schoolhouse and studied in the afternoons. That was where he would go now. Brian was still busy with the last few crops of the harvest, for he built in the growing season and harvested in the harvest season. Daisy was ill. He had more free time than he was used to, but he would attend to the fields. He had taken to helping the women of the town with canning the vegetables to be used through the winter. Dr. Graves only sent a letter saying he was currently in the south for his own health. The few trained in healing in the town were doing their best with the sick children, but it was not easy.  
The two other men were dismissed, though Father Joseph lingered within Mr. Small’s house. Perhaps in a last-ditch bargaining effort, or perhaps out of only his own desire to be alone for a moment. He glanced around. He checked a few more bottles, bowls, pots. He leafed through books. He found nothing and placed things back as best they could. And while he was about to depart, something caught the corner of his eye. He shifted towards where it looked like a scrap of fabric had fallen on the floor. Initially, he had thought nothing of it. As he lifted it, though, he recognized it from Mary’s needlework project that she was working on currently. He gripped the fabric in his fist and exhaled a noise of audible frustration. He knew Mary and Mr. Small were close. They always had been, even with Father Joseph having done as he had done not once but, now, twice. But it was for the greater good, truly. At least he told himself that as he tucked the fabric into his pocket. He would confront Mary that evening. There was no point in it just now. Mary was currently at the mayor’s house, and he would not intervene there. After all, he had some respect for the fact that he was still rankled beneath the Bloodmarch family.

 

“I count myself very blessed, Mary, that I have not had someone step to attempt to take my role as mayor.” And the man chuckled as he poured tea into a porcelain cup with elegantly painted red flowers, handing it to Mary. Mayor Bloodmarch had spent time with the pseudo-aristocracy of the landowners in the south and kept some of their mannerisms with him—inexplicably, in some ways. Saturday brunch was one of them, a light meal shared with Mary. She had much more time on her hands now that her ill children were quarantined. She saw them daily, yes, but it was ill advised to stay in the house of the sick lest the sickness go with you. It seemed no adults were infected, but the risk was not in her favor. “Could you imagine a town council in the midst of all this to deem me unfit as mayor? I feel I will never be unaware of that possibility…” A sweet cream and cucumber sandwich was cut into even fours before her, and she took a bite, listening to the mayor. “I rarely miss the South, really, but at least I never had to worry of losing my title there of my own mishaps.”

“Only of your husband’s. And that happened. Which is fine, honestly, he was a bastard. But you were blessed with Lucien, if nothing else.”

“I am blessed that Lucien is nothing like his father,” as he sipped is lavender tea and rest in the plush seat. “Save for his eyes.”

Light chat over brunch was engaged in, but as time ticked forward it was Mary who grew anxious. Finally, she spoke no more of triviality and folded her hands upon the table before her. “We need to think of how we will help Robert. I can’t… I can’t stand for him to stay in that cell any more. I just can’t. He’s getting sick. He’s getting more and more pale. You know—when he can’t drink. And Joseph won’t let me stand watch, because he thinks we’re too close. And you can’t do it because you have other things to concern yourself with. I’m worried about Rob.”

His hands folded over his teacup and placed it upon the table, looking over the brunch spread towards the concerned woman. It was as though Mary had aged a year in a scope of time that was far less. Though Mayor Bloodmarch would remark he was little better, he saw it in his own face, and when he looked upon Father Joseph. One would think the man would be triumphant in his victory of apprehending the witch, but he seemed weary and tired. There was a darkness under his eyes that most were not accustomed to, and his sermon on Sunday was without the uplifting light he usually gave off. Maybe it was the exhaustion of the times.

“I’m also worried because Joseph has spent the entire day in Robert’s house trying to find evidence.”

“We thought about that the night they arrested Robert, Mary.” His lips were downturned even as he spoke, a tremor to his voice betraying his own worry. “There was nothing suspicious left in his house.”

Her eyes were downcast at the liquid in her cup, thoughtful before she spoke. “I know. But Joseph may find evidence where there is none. He may forge evidence. I’m… not sure what he would be willing to go through. I’m worried about him too, but Robert first.”

“There is one way to prove that he is not consorting with the devil, though I am not sure how willing Joseph would be to attempt it.”

Mary lifted her head, looking across at Mayor Bloodmarch with skepticism in her eyes before she spoke. “And what is that?”

In her opinion, his tone was far to blasé as he spoke the words that sent a shiver dancing down her spine. She still had faith; she attended church out of her own belief though perhaps she leaned towards other eclectic religious faiths as well—mostly due to her exposure to Mayor Bloodmarch and Mr. Small. But what the mayor said made her blood run cold as she gripped harder to her teacup. “We have to have him summon the Devil.”

“Come again?”

“I told you. We have Mr. Small summon the Devil before Joseph. If he fails, then we can use that to protest his innocent. We know he is guilty of witchcraft. We know he is innocent of calling upon the Devil, and that should be grounds for his release. Correct?”

Her brown eyes were wide as she looked across at him, visibly shocked that he spoke so casually of these terms. So casually of drumming up the very father of lies himself, the one she had been raised all her life to fear like no other entity, like nothing else in this world. And Mayor Bloodmarch spoke of it as one would call up an old companion. It worried her. “And just how the hell do we do that?”

“It’s simple.” His grace was ethereal as he sat down on the couch again, dropping an additional cube of sugar into his tea. “I approach Father Joseph to discuss the trial of Mr. Robert Small. Witch trials are usually done publicly,” he knew quite a bit about this, “so I remind him of that. On the plantation, it was common that if someone was thought bewitched, the accused would have to call upon Satan before the eyes of the town to have him stop his assault upon those that were under his curse. If the bewitched recovered, the witch was guilty. If the bewitched remained ill, the witch was innocent.” At least, when the rules were followed. A ghost across the face of the mayor was a quiet reminder that, no, the rules were not always followed. But he at least hoped he could keep Father Joseph within the paradigm of how things should operate. “When the children remain sick, we lobby for Robert’s innocence and release.”

“And if the children recover?” The thought alone made her stomach ache. Maybe Mr. Small was hiding something from them. They chose to believe the best of Mr. Small, but if he did turn out to be the worst… “Then what do we do?”

His lips downturned as he placed his palm beneath the bottom of the teacup. “Then I am afraid our friend Robert is consorting with the Devil indeed and there is nothing we can do to disprove that.”

“This leaves quite a bit up to chance,” as her voice wavered, at least a little bit. Concern crushed her chest and it ached deep. Neither of them wanted to entertain the notion and so neither of them had said it until this point, and she looked directly at the mayor. He avoided her eyes. “Is there no other way?”

“None that don’t risk more harm to Mr. Small than finding him guilty would.”

She gripped the teacup and bowed her head. “Then that is our only option.”

“I will call upon Father Joseph later. I have to attend to the storage of the crops for the winter. The first frost will be soon and this has distracted me from much of what needs to be done before the snow comes.”

That was true. After harvest came the snow, and there were many worries of a harsh winter. Last winter had been fairly mild, as far as the little New England town of Maplesborough was concerned so it was best to be prepared for the word. She rose to leave with that thought in her mind, but she paused as she held her skirts in her hand. “Damien?”

“Yes, Mary?”

“I wouldn’t have happened to have dropped a bit of fabric here, would I? I misplaced the cross-stitch I was working on for the church.”

“I’m sorry, Mary. I haven’t seen it.”

 

Father Joseph cast a lingering glance towards the two-cell jailhouse that he knew contained Mr. Small and the courier. There had been little to do with letters as of late, save for those that were going out, and Craig rode out to the mail post daily with a bundle that often went out to those families, those that were concerned for their nieces and nephews. The last letter that had come in was handed through the bars to Mr. Small.

“It’s from your daughter.”

He hadn’t slept. His vices were coming back to torture him and he sweat and found himself unable to sleep. Nausea crashed over him like the waves of the ocean berating the cliffsides. Craig sat on the chair outside the door, for he had volunteered to do so today. This allowed Brian to tend to the crops with the mayor.

“Guess you haven’t heard from her in a while, huh?”

The sound that served as a response was a noncommittal grunt. It worried Craig. Anyone that looked upon him would know he was unwell, though Father Joseph had only passively remarked on it. The priest had monitored him through the night and departed in the early morning when Craig arrived to take the shift. Their exchange had only been passive, and Father Joseph had advised him to keep a close eye on the man’s health. His inner demons seemed to be eating him alive.

But the silence was broken by a faint chuckle that made Craig lift his head. He was busy mending a button that had fallen from one of Briar’s dresses—paternal duties fell solely to him, after all, so he cared deeply for his girls. But his hand stilled. It was a welcome break in the silence. “Yeah?”

“She was wanting to come by. For Christmas.” He sounded much worse for wear than Craig had expected, so the courier frowned deeply. “Wants me to meet who she’s grown into. Since she went off. Bet she looks just like Marilyn.” Craig almost thought he saw light in those eyes before scarred hands crumbled the letter up and tossed it aside. Shock illuminated the courier’s face. “Bet she’s better off without me in her life, huh. Most folk would be.”

“That, that’s not true, Rob. You know that, don’t you?”

“Nah,” came the hoarse voice, the head thudding against the wall as he leaned back. His lips were dry and his skin felt like it was too tight stretched over his skeletal frame. “S’fine. I get it. Just let Joe drown me, or burn me, or whatever he wants to do to get rid of me. The waiting is killing me.”

“You’ve… not even had a trail yet, Robert. It’s fine. You’ll be fine, huh? Should—I’ll get you a quill, some ink. You should write back to Val. Let her know her dad’s doin’ okay. Because you are, right? You’re fine. You’ll be fine.” Mr. Small was not sure of who he was trying to convince. His tone sounded quite a bit like he was attempting to convince himself of the fact that Mr. Small would be okay, though the captive man had resigned himself since the moment the finger was pointed at him. He’d been figured out, and that was that, and it was time to move on with it. “I’d love to meet Val, now she’s all grown up.”

“Joseph would convict me if the wind so much as blew on the day of my trial,” came the rumble of Mr. Small’s voice. It wasn’t particularly deep, but it was gruff, more hoarse than normal. “I don’t bank on making it until Christmas.”

“Hey.”

Craig started as the door opened, Mat standing there with a plate of food and a glass bottle that contained an amber liquid. It was whiskey. Craig knew that Mr. Small was not supposed to be allowed any luxuries, but Craig knew that Mr. Small got terribly ill when he hadn’t drunk for a while. So he looked away as the plate and bottle were slid through the small slit at the bottom of the door designed for such.

“Keep an eye on him.” And Mat left them to their own again, ever the talkative one.

Father Joseph had to be busy somewhere for that to have passed, but Craig was not the one to stand here and damn him for doing what he did. Everyone wanted Mr. Small to be okay. At least, Craig worked under that assumption. He always was an optimistic one.

 

“Were you looking for this?”

Mary sat by the fire of the home attached to the church of Maplesborough. Her hands were busy mending one of Christie’s dolls, one button eye having come loose and the bottom hem of a dress torn. It was quiet in the house, Chris sitting opposite her with his head bowed as he poured over the family Bible. Theirs was probably the nicest in all of Maplesborough, handed down from Father’s Joseph’s own father, the former priest of the town, John Christiansen. He didn’t look up when his father entered the room. Mary lifted her head to find the cross stitch she had been working on extended before her husband. She was not sure why but the instant she glimpsed the familiar white thread on the familiar linen cloth, her stomach fell. “It would be a shame for you to lose all your hard work, Mary.”

She felt baited, as though she was being lead into a trap. But she rose from where she sat and moved to take it from her husband, though her hands hesitated as she reached forward. “I must have dropped it. I was worried t was lost—thank you, Joseph.”

“Why did I find it in Brother Small’s house while we were investigating him for witchcraft, Mary?”

That was why. It felt as though all the air had been wrenched from her lungs and replaced with a frigid artic wind. Of all things that would condemn Mr. Small, it would be her presence in his house. But there was no reason that would tie him to witchcraft. An affair, at most.

“I must have dropped it there,” she spoke, not allowing hesitation. “The past few days have been arduous, Joseph. You know he is my dear friend, and the days leading up to his conviction…”

“You spent quite a bit of time with him, Mary.”

She was not one to speak in defiance of Father Joseph or his claims, but this time she took a quick intake of air through her nose. The sound was sharp and caused the priest to raise his head. Her shoulders squared notably as she seized the scrap of fabric from where her husband extended it to her. “I did, indeed. But I recall the day prior to his conviction, you had a long conversation with him in his home. Is that not the case, Joseph?”

The moments that she could claim she had truly surprised Father Joseph were indeed few and small between, but as his face paled, she was aware this was one of them. It only brought out the bruising of exhaustion around his grey-blue eyes. They seemed duller than they should be, and it worried her. “Cannot two men have a discussion with one another without scrutiny?”

“You didn’t see his Devil’s mark through the window.”

More was to be said as it lingered on the tip of her tongue, but she stilled it before her son. Chris kept his head bowed and said little, as he always did.

“Chris.” Father Joseph’s voice was a low rumble as he turned his attention to the boy who did not even lift his head. “Please go into your room.”

Small hands closed the Bible and placed it upon the shelf that it always rested upon save for on Sundays. Tired eyes, for Chris was always tired. He never slept well, no matter how they tried. The door was closed and the parents were left in the living area, facing one another. Mary’s face was alight with color, frustration written across her features. Usually, she minded her own when the children were around. This is the boldest that her disagreements with her husband hand been—and there was concern in her. Worry in her. She had heard the stories of other towns, larger towns in New England when the condemnation of a single witch brought forth the condemnation of others, of many. But she stood her ground and looked straight ahead at her husband.

“You aren’t yourself since all of this started, Joseph.” This was the first that her voice had wavered since she had begun this discussion. “You’re letting it get to you. I’m worried about you—”

“Were you following me?”

In all of their marriage, not once had Father Joseph struck her. She had heard upon occasion that some men struck their wives, especially those who donned the cloth, to keep them in line, but never her husband. He smiled bright at her and cared deeply for their children, though he (not unlike herself and Mr. Small) had vices he fell upon from time to time, for no man was without sin. This, though? This was more than she was used to. Paranoia. She would hesitate to call it aggression, but she was worried for him.

“I saw you go into Robert’s house. I didn’t see you come back out. I don’t know what you did,” which was true: she did not know, merely assumed, “but I know you did not glimpse a Devil’s Mark through the window as you told the town. I am not accusing you of anything but what I can prove, and that is lying, Joseph.”

The number of times anger truly lit the priest’s face were few. His strong jaw was squared; his teeth were clenched behind his closed lips as he listened to her, seeming to wait for her to say more. But she didn’t. She was quiet, face reddened, hands gripping to the fabric that had passed from his hands to hers.

“Why did you lie?”

“Do you distrust me, Mary? You shouldn’t distrust your husband. A wife should be—”

“We’ve been married for over ten years and you have never once lectured me on what a wife should be!” Mary didn’t raise her voice under normal occasions, but under this one she did. The threads were giving way in her hand, but she cared little for the preservation of the needlework at this point. It could be redone. “What has gotten into you? If I didn’t know better, I’d say that it is you who are bewitched. I am the best wife I can be to you. I have had your children, I have stood behind you and supported you in all things even when I know, Joseph, I know your appetite for vice, for men! But I never speak against you in public. I—”

“You consorted with the devil to kill my child, Mary.” All the color that was in the woman’s face drained immediately, leaving her pallid, blanched there as desert bone. “I will burn the witch responsible if it is the last thing that I do.”

Maybe Mary had been too hopeful to assume that her husband was not keen enough to have picked up on the pregnancy, but she spoke regardless: “I lost the child. Why do you think the devil had anything to do with it? It is—it is not the first child that I have lost, and you know it—”

“You went into the woods with a witch.”

“How do you know—?”

She flinched. For a moment, she was concerned he would strike her. He merely seized her arms, the grip was neither painful nor enough to bruise. He had done it before. It was out of concern, and for a moment, she saw concern in those grey-blue eyes. “Five children.” Four living. One lost. It made her swallow hard. “Five children and by now, you expect me not to know when my wife is with child? You are fitful in your sleep. Too hot for blankets, even in winter. You sleep soundly almost any other night. But you—how did you think I wouldn’t know?” He was sad. He was sad and she was genuinely feeling a bubble of anger that he had the audacity to be sad, here, now. She swallowed hard.

“How can you expect me to have your child?” He gripped her arms and she returned the action, seizing the forearms that were covered by a coat. “How can you ask that of me knowing you slept with Robert?” Her voice had been raised, but it was much softer now, almost a whisper. There were some things that their child need never hear, and this was one of them. “I lost the child. That’s all. There was no foul play, there was nothing. I don’t know why you are so adamant that it was anything but my own body that rejected the child. It… it happened the last time.” After Crish, she had come with child. That child had been lost, and none spoke of it. Father Joseph had performed funeral rites for the child in the company only of himself and Mary. “I lost the child, Joseph. No witch took him from me.”

“I wish I could believe you.”

“I am your wife,” came the voice, still weak. She was not afraid of her husband. She never had been, and she refused to be. “Twelve years I have been nothing but loyal and the best wife I could be to you. I would never lie to you. I did not go into the woods with a witch to consort with the Devil, Joseph. I wouldn’t. I fear the Devil, and I love God. Please,” she gripped tighter, moving towards him slightly as she could. She felt tears dampen the corner of her eyes, clumping her lashes. “Please don’t let this witch hunt drive you mad.”  
Father Joseph released her and so she released in kind, and he shook his head. His coat was buttoned again as he parted from her company. “I must go sit with the accused. It would do you good to pray for your own soul, Mary. For your sake.”

“Jo—” but he was gone. The door closed behind him and she collapsed into the chair in the sitting room, face in her hands. The needlework on the floor was long forgotten, no longer of circumstance. The silver thread of the cross was coming unraveled on the floor as she placed her face in her hands. She had made a mistake.

 

Mayor Bloodmarch fastened the bird skull shape clasp of his fur-lined cloak. It may have been a bit warm for that particular choice yet, but he donned it anyway as he stepped from his house. His other cloak would need washing from the time spent in the fields during the course of the day. It was like when they had informed Mat of the test they would put into the ear of Father Joseph: he would request to speak with Mr. Small in private, and as the mayor, he was granted such privileges. After all, he was not suspect. There was no reason that he should be. He was the upstanding mayor of the town. However, when he lifted his head from pulling on the fine leather gloves, he was aware of Father Joseph joining him in the trek towards the cell. Maybe Mat’s preparation and flawless recitation lay suspect upon him, for he had been the only one to speak with the accused in private prior to case being dismissed. But nothing about his mien would reveal that as he smiled at the haggard priest.

Mary was right to be concerned.

“Mayor Bloodmarch.” Father Joseph was weary. He sounded quite tired as he fell in stride with the dark-haired mayor of the town. “How are the crops?”

“Father Joseph!” And he smiled brightly, near eclipsing the one that was given to him by the priest. “Quite well. It seems that we are blessed this year with quite a bounty.” It was trivial. Small talk. Mr. Small always seemed to openly oppose it and until this point in time, the mayor never much minded it. It felt like a noose tightening around his neck, every word, every mention. Until it was he who broached the truth of a subject: “And where are you heading to that allows our paths to cross today, Father?”

“I am to watch over the accused for the night.” Mayor Bloodmarch clenched those leather gloved hands in the least obvious way he could manage. “Craig reported to Hugo earlier today that he was heard muttering to himself. I worry that may be a sign of his witchcraft.” And the mayor knew that. Such had been lobbied up as an additional piece of evidence against those accused in trials on the plantation—and he swallowed hard. “To think. Robert Small, a witch.”

It wasn’t that much of a stretch and the mayor knew that well, but he kept his voice quiet. “We should give him a trial, as we gave Mr. Sella. It would only be fair to allow him to prove himself innocent, would you not agree? To condemn him based on a supposed mark alone seems… unfair.”

“I agree with you there. I have not yet thought of a trial best suited for Robert’s case. Stones and water—I would prefer to avoid those. They seem cruel, and harmful; and if innocent, he would die. We glean nothing from that.” It didn’t seem that Father Joseph was far gone enough to convict Mr. Small at literally any cost, but for how long that would last… “You dealt with the witch trials of the South, Mayor Bloodmarch. Have you a suggestion?”

A momentary paused was used to give the illusion he had not already had at least one idea in his mind. His cloak was drawn around him, his fingers were steepled before his lips as they walked for a moment. “We have a number of children who have supposedly succumbed to the witch’s curse. When there were those that were bewitched… we would call upon the accused to summon the Devil and demand the torment of the innocent stopped. While no more children have fallen ill since the imprisonment of Mr. Small, this may be our best way to prove he is the guilty one.”

The gait of the priest stilled as he turned his gaze to the mayor with a frown illuminating his features. “Calling upon the Devil himself seems extreme, doesn’t it?”  
“If the accusations upon Mr. Small are indeed correct,” and the mayor stilled himself in turn, turning to look at the man who had stopped a few paces behind him, “then the Devil has already been called upon. It is not as though this would be the first time.”

It was Mayor Bloodmarch who strode forth again first, the priest a stride behind him before he jogged for just a moment to fall back in line. “While you are correct, I worry that calling upon the Devil again may have adverse consequences. And to demand anything of the Devil seems inherently dangerous. I would be worried to make things worse instead of better.”

“Then how would you suppose we try him? Binding him to a chair and throwing him to the river? Pressing him with stones? Until we find any damning evidence, I would hesitate to go that route.”

“On the note of evidence,” Mayor Bloodmarch felt his stomach plummet. “It seems that there may have been a case of obstruction of justice. I… I hate to confess to it, but…” Mayor Bloodmarch swore he could feel the hairs at the base of his long, black mane stand on end as Father Joseph took a moment before speaking. “While Mr. Vega, Mr. Harding, and I were seeing to the inspection of the accused house, I found something suspicious. It was Mary’s cross stitch she had been working on… the silver cross, for the collection plate.”  
Part of the mayor felt relief knowing that the finger was not being pointed at him. The other part of him was a fiery concern for Mary, knowing that now the eye of suspicion might turn upon her. She may fall along with Mr. Small if such transpired and he grit his teeth together before he spoke. “It could be mere circumstance. She may have dropped t there when visiting with Mr. Small earlier, before he was convicted. They are good friends, after all.”

“I have done all I can to attempt to alleviate my own suspicion as to this incident. However, I saw her sitting in her chair by the window that very morning of his accusation, working on the stitching. I am afraid she is consorting with the accused. I am afraid for her soul, Damien.” Mary’s head was the next on the chopping block, as far as the mayor interpreted it. But the priest spoke again. “Yet we found no evidence. Mary may have removed it. I am… not sure where it would be hidden, or if she would have destroyed it.” The mayor cast his eyes towards the priest as they stood before the two-cell jailhouse of Maplesborough. Jailhouse was even a bit of an exaggeration, but it was the closest they had. He was acutely aware of the fact those things that would result in the condemnation of Mr. Small as a witch were stashed away in the bottom of Dahlia’s hope chest, now that Carmensita was no longer using it. “You and Mary are quite close.” Here came the accusation: he braced for it. “Would you know where she would hide such a thing?”  
Somehow, the mayor managed to keep his expression at least reasonably lackadaisical. He managed to look at the blond, the two nigh upon eye level with one another, and merely shake his head. “I am also quite close with the accused, Father Joseph, but have operated all my days under the assumption he was just another man. Perhaps one bordering upon faithless due to his failure to attend your sermons, and yet…” A gloved hand was balled into a fist and rest at his lower lip. “I would have never suspected witchcraft of our Good Mr. Small.” He was adept at pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes. After all, he had done it since his return from the South. But—he had the luck of his brother having been a sickly one that few people knew. No time to amuse those thoughts, however. “A good man and a loving father, when his wife was alive.”

“I am afraid this transpired after. Goody Marilyn was a Godly woman, she is with Him now. I thank you for your help in all of this, Mayor Bloodmarch. I must go sit with the accused now.”

When the priest’s back was to him, the mayor swore faintly under his breath, lost on the sound of the wind through the trees readily stripped of their leaves. He had hoped to be able to warn Mr. Small of the trail that would be impending for him, as they had been able to warn Mat. He would have no such luck.

And it would be best he not speak to Mary of it. That he was sure of.

Father Joseph disappeared inside of the jailhouse and Craig departed, hardly sparing a second glance towards the mayor outside of a quick nod. He was off to see his sick children. Mayor Bloodmarch could not blame him, but he turned aside and opted to distract himself with anything other than his own thoughts. Surely there was something to oversee. Someone to speak to. Anything other than witches to fill his mind.

Mr. Small didn’t even lift his head at the changing of the guard—which is exactly what it felt like. They did not really have designated law enforcement unit. They were too small; citizens volunteered when it was necessary. Until this point, they were blessed with next to no need for such a thing. Even when Father Joseph seated himself and even spoke, Mr. Small’s focus seemed to be pointedly upon an imperfection in the wood of the jail cell. Not to use it to break out, but to have anything to ground him in where he was. He felt like his brain was swimming.

“Robert.” He didn’t respond. The priest repeated himself, “Robert.”

While the veteran still didn’t lift his head, he managed a response. “Joseph.”

“Would you care to pray?”

Admittedly, it was difficult to discern if that was a laugh or if it was a grunt. The priest tightened his brows over his eyes anyway, taking a firm look at the man on the other side of the bars. “Like hell.” And Father Joseph gave a heavy exhale, opening the Bible that had been tucked away in his coat. There was one within the cell, sure. But that was only for those serving for a crime. This was not the Christiansen family bible, but the one from the church. He hardly took the family Bible out of their home.

“You may come to regret those words, Robert. I only want to save your soul.”

“Those are pretty big words from someone who called me a witch and accused me of consorting with Satan himself. Hell, if I’m a witch, can my soul even be saved? Something about consecrating a pact with the devil through sex, if I remember right.” This was the first time that Mr. Small lift his head from his pointed staring contest with the floor. It was accusatory, and Father Joseph felt it. “I’m rather sure what you call the Devil’s Mark on my shoulder wasn’t there before you came to—”

“I had my suspicions,” interjected the priest as his hands gripped to the leather cover of the Bible in his hands. “I had to see the full expanse of your body to check for marks of the Devil. I found what I was looking for.”

Low rumbled the chuckle from the accused veteran as he moved his gaze back to the knot in the wood. “So you fucked me so you could get evidence against me. I’m pretty sure that’s probably a no-go with the big guy upstairs.”

“How dare you claim to know the will of God better than I do.”

“I’m not the one that fucked the man he thought was a witch to get evidence. Can’t you just do it like they do in other towns? Barge in and hold me down? No. You can’t blame me this time, Joseph. What would Mary think—”

“Mary’s soul is as damned as yours unless she will repent.” Mr. Small cared little for his own eternity. But the idea that Mary was now factoring into the equation made his shoulders slump. “I know she is consorting with you. Perhaps not with the Devil—Father in Heaven, I hope not, not my Mary—but with you. And you are the Devil’s liaison. You are a witch.” It was not even a question or an accusation. Father Joseph spoke it as though it was confirmed facts, as though there was irrefutable evidence. Mr. Small felt his lungs fill with air that felt bitter. “You are a witch and Mary is protecting you. She was in your house to hide all evidence. Where is it hidden?”

The inhale was deep through the accused nose before he spoke in an even cadence, “So you’re saying your wife went into my house to hide the supposed evidence of my supposed witchcraft and I should know where it’s at? I think you’re missing a key element in that I’ve been in this cell since you put me here a few days ago, Christiansen.” He wasn’t keeping track of the days. There really was no point in it. Two days—perhaps three. The passage of time was hard enough to track when he wasn’t in a cell. “I have no idea where she would have hidden what the hell ever she found.”

“You are not denying she might have found something?”

“I don’t have to tell you shit, Joseph. You’re going to hang me, or burn me, or drown me, or stone me not matter what I do. I don’t know why you’re wasting my time. I’m at peace with it.”

“Your trial for your innocence is tomorrow.” Mr. Small could not discern if it was warning or if it was cautious. He was usually more adept at reading the priest—not right now. That upset him slightly. “Would you like to know exactly what will be done?”

“Oh. Tell me it’s the pressing with stones. If I’m going to go out, can we at least make it messy?”

“The point of a trial is to confirm guilt or innocence and, if innocent, allow the accused to walk free.”

“I’m sure the Witchfinder General would disagree with you.” Robert shifted within the cell, momentarily turning his attention up to the priest who sat for a moment in silence. He watched those fair hands grasp the leather covers of his Bible, inlaid with the silver letters. “So no stones? No drowning? This doesn’t sound like it’s going to be that fun.”

Father Joseph recognized this sense of humor. It was dry, self-degrading; it was how he learned Mr. Small coped with his own fears. With his own worries. Maybe Mr. Small was the one that was easy to read in this instance, but he was beyond the point of feeling the need to throw up barriers.

Mr. Small just thought about how the light that trickled in from the window illuminated the laugh lines around Father Joseph’s mouth in this moment. It was easier than thinking about the fact that his time on this earth was probably considerably more numbered than he would have initially liked to think. All at the hands of this blond-haired, grey-eyed pastor whose fair hands held onto the leather of the church’s Bible. Was it personal? He didn’t want to ask. He thought it was probably easier not to know at this point. The ending would be the same, either way—personal or not.

Father Joseph had beautiful hands.

“It was at the behest of Mayor Bloodmarch that this option was chosen.” Mr. Small pursed his lips. Maybe this could work in his favor. He was aware of the fact the mayor was on his side and so he drew himself to sit more upright than he had before. “You are to call upon the Devil himself. If you fail to do so, you will be cleared of accusations.”

“That simple? How do you know I’m not just intentionally messing it up? You have some angle to this, Joseph.”

An exhale passed from the priest as he ran his thumb over the pages of the Bible in his hands. “You will call upon the Devil and you will demand that he heal the children. If the children are healed, you are a witch. If the children remain ill, you are innocent.”

“Huh.” His voice was low, an exhale as he leaned his head back against the building. “We’ll see.”

“You have nothing to say for yourself?”

The silence that was his response answered his question, and Father Joseph bowed his head to read the familiar words.

 

There had been talk of moving the sick children to the inn, but it seemed a bad move as far as the off chance of a traveler passing through. So, they were kept in an old home, one that had been occupied by an elderly woman who had passed peacefully. No family had moved into it as of yet. Cots had been moved in there for the sick. The people of Mapleborough counted their blessings that no children had yet died. The mayor sat perched upon the edge of a cot with his hand upon the forehead of his own ailing son, a cough wracking his slight frame. Lucien had always been thin, much like his parents both had been slight in frame, but he was thinner now. The children had been able to eat little but broth. Others crowded around the door to see what they could within, peeking around to see that Father Joseph (garbed in cassock) stood next to Mr. Small. He looked sleepless, sick. He looked almost as pale as the children. Those that had not seen him since his arrest shared glances of concern.

Mary held tight to her skirts, lifted above the ankle-high boots she wore, laced a little too lose. She looked at Mr. Small with concern in her eyes, flicking her gaze towards Father Joseph. They had not spoken more on anything, they had slept in silence in their marital bed. Usually, he at least touched her. Placed a kiss on her shoulder as she lay down to sleep. Last night they lay beside one another in silence.

She had never before in her life found herself wishing that children remained ill. There was still the nagging in the back of her mind from her conversation with Mayor Bloodmarch: what if he was consorting with the Devil? What if she had damned her soul by asking for his aid? Her fingers ran over the rough weave of her fabric before she locked her gaze upon Mr. Small. Even so much as looking at Father Joseph hurt.

“Brother Robert Small,” and Mr. Small was reminded of how very deeply he still loathed to be called Brother, as though he were a part of the church still, “stand before us accused of witchcraft. To prove he has no ties to the black magic of the Devil, he will call upon the Father of Lies himself and demand that what has been done to these children be undone.” The statement was punctuated by a cough that sounded from one of Craig’s daughters. He stood nearest Mary at the door, sparing her only a momentary glance. None in the town were aware of what had transpired between Mary and Father Joseph, and that was probably for the best. “Will you undertake this trial before the eyes of the town?”

“Do I really have a choice?”

No one dared even mumble at this moment. It was as though all held their breath due to the tension of the situation with the exception of Mr. Small. For a man who’s very wellbeing was at stake, one would assume he would be more concerned. That was simply not the way of the veteran.

“Do you consent to this trial before the eyes of our Godly neighbors, Brother Small?”

“Sure.”

He was entirely too blase about the entire scenario. Mat had been wary of even being held in a prison cell, while Mr. Small paid no mind to being asked to summon the Devil himself. Mary and Mayor Bloodmarch shared a brief look as he strode to the middle of the room that contained at least six of the ill children. Briar, Hazel, and Lucien were among their numbers--those of the Christiansen family who had contracted the illness were in another part of the impromptu sick ward, as well as Daisy and Ernest. The veteran took a glance at the children and then towards the priest. “I need something to open a circle. Chalk. Sticks. Chicken blood. Your choice.”

This prompted murmurs, inquiry. This prompted blue-grey eyes to open wider than they had been before. But one of the crowd members came up with chalk and it passed hands through the priest before falling to the accused as he knelt to the ground. It was with precise movements, practiced movements that a near perfect circle was traced upon the floor, causing Father Joseph to step backwards to avoid being in it. A few lines. A few symbols. Mr. Small either knew what he was doing, or he was very adept at faking it. Given his usual demeanor, it was nearly impossible to discern which was which. The chalk was placed into an internal pocket of his waistcoat as he came to sit in the middle of the circle with his shins folded beneath him. His hands rest upon his knees, and his eyes were closed.

There was no air circulation, or at least it felt as much. Windows were parted only slightly to allow the flow of clean air into the building, but now the air was still. People seemed hesitant to even breath in that moment, and Mr. Small was as still as a statue. Even the sick children seemed exceptionally quiet.

It was easy to ignore the fact they grey-blue eyes darted hither and thither as though nervous, as though expecting something. Doubly easy for Mr. Small to ignore because there was an inkling part of him that had predicted it, and for vastly different reasons.

Observers would have expected chatting in Latin, or curses, or something. Something. They expected something but their focus was so upon Mr. Small that they did not see the tells nor indications of malaise in regards to the actions of their priest. He shifted. He even wrung his hands slightly as all others stood in rapt observance. His brows tightened as he looked around the room, silence only broken by the occasional, week cough. Father Joseph felt pinpricks on his fingertips. Father Joseph felt pressure behind his eyes as his mind fired out panic but he could not express it. His hands were neither cold, nor were they hot. His skin felt too tight, and he finally excused himself. 

To all others, there was no difference. The children remained ill, they coughed. It seemed like time stood still until the point at which Mr. Small reopened his eyes and reached across to drag his hand through the chalk, effectively breaking the circle. He’d learned. He’d learned not to leave circles open in the past. 

In the absence of Father Joseph, it was Mayor Bloodmarch who crossed the floorboards to extend a hand and help his long-time friend to his feet. It was only then that Mr. Small was able to process the fact that Father Joseph was gone, though he intermittently said nothing.

“So am I guilty?” This was, perhaps, the only time that he had showed any interest in the the fact that it was his life on the line. Mayor Bloodmarch cast a glance towards Mary who, in turn, glanced out the door where her husband had departed rather hurriedly and with little explanation. Who would be the one to strike the gavel and make the final judgement? Likely Father Joseph. This did not bode well as some of the town slunk from where they had gathered. Mayor Bloodmarch stood to the right of the accused while Mary was on the left and, wordlessly, they escorted him back to the cell. There was no finality of a decision being made, only Mary lowering herself into the seat while Mayor Bloodmarch excused himself. They both felt it was a better idea if he was the one to find Father Joseph. 

“Mary.”

Her hands gripped tighter to her skirts.

“What happened?”

“He walked out. I don’t know why. He didn’t say anything to me, or to anyone else. He just… Damien went to find him.”

“No. I meant what happened to you.” He heard her sudden intake of breath and lifted his head as she sat in silence. “Something’s up. And it’s more than just being tired, more than just being worried about your kids, Mary. So don’t even say that.”

“Joseph knows, Robert. He knows about me… losing the child.” Losing was a loose term. She hasn’t lost the child, she had gotten rid of the child with the help of Mr. Small. And somehow, some way, Father Joseph had been aware of that, and it ached deep in her bones. “He knows I called on a witch for help, but he doesn’t know who it was.”  
The accused’s head lulled back against the wall with a small thud, eyes closed as he kept his face tilted towards the ceiling. The sun beamed in through the bars on the window of the small jailhouse, serving as the only light. “So that’s what started all of this?”

“I don’t think witchcraft would have come up even with the epidemic if not for that,” sounded her quiet voice. She wasn’t looking at Mr. Small, and he didn’t blame her. Not really. He had a hard time looking at himself, too. 

“Fuck.”

“Exactly.”

Guilt was heavy in the room and silenced further conversation.

 

It was in the church that the mayor came to find the priest. Though it was daylight still, it felt weighted and dark, it felt heavier than it did even when funerals were held there. Opening the door with a weighted push even made Mayor Bloodmarch swallow hard and reach his hands to rest against the fabric of his simple cravat. Candles flickered on either side of the pulpit, which was… unusual. So he swallowed as he stepped in, the sound of his boots on the wooden floor echoing through the large building.

“Father Christiansen?”

The blond man knelt before the wooden cross, with hands clasped and gripping tight to the point that he trembled slightly. Concern danced in the forefront of the mayor’s mind, but he was… cautious. He was exceptionally wary, as something just felt awry and had since the rapid retreat he observed earlier.

“Joseph?”

“Robert is a witch, Damien.” The conviction nearly caused the mayor to stumble. “He has cursed the children, and--”

“Joseph,” admittedly, the mayor struggled to keep his cadence even, swallowing quite hard and admittedly caught somewhat unaware. “We have no way of knowing that. We… will have to see if the state of the children improves or not. Are you well?”

“Leave met to pray. I swear to you I felt the Devil in that room. Please. Leave me to pray.”

“I… Joseph, I don’t think you should be left alone. You gave us a bit of a scare when you left as you did. You…”

“I said leave.”

The word nearly had physical might, causing him to step back, his hand still hovering over the fabric of his necktie. Something was… wrong. There was something off, and he was wary to bring it to the attention of the priest. The darkness in the room seemed unnatural. Had Mr. Small--

It was a dark idea, but it planted itself within his mind. Had the accused placed a curse on the accuser? He had heard of it, observed it, even, when living in the south. But the idea of his friend doing that unsettled his stomach. “Joseph…” But, he thought better of it. He turned on his heel and made a quick jaunt towards where he knew Mr. Small was being held under Mary’s watchful eye. Father Joseph would have surely disapproved, but he certainly was in no state to have any say in this. Mayor Bloodmarch only knew that he needed to speak to Mary, without the knowledge of Mr. Small.

And he stated as much, hurriedly opening the door to speak behind his hand at the woman who hung her head low. The air was heavy. He was so tired of the air being heavy. It was exhausting, and he was so very tired of being exhausted. “Mary, please. I need to speak with you in private.”

“... Joseph wouldn’t be happy about leaving Robert--”

“It’s about Joseph. Please. Now. It’s urgent.”

Her eyes looked at Mr. Small and then readily back at the near frantic mayor. The fear of reprimand weighted her for a moment before she slowly stood from the seat. Of all of them, she trusted Mayor Bloodmarch the most, and seeing him so disheveled, his hair awry caused the taste of concern to rise in the back of her throat. She worried for Mayor Bloodmarch, genuinely, and his current mien was… uncomfortable. She stole a look towards Mr. Small, his grey-tinged brow arched visibly at what currently transpired, his shoulders rolling back, his head lax against the wall. He didn’t seem as though he were chomping at the bit to see about making some grandeur escape. So with a weighted exhale, the woman attended to the mayor’s side as they walked from the building. While she was not quite sure the direction they were going, it seemed that he may not either. Slender, ivory digits combed through his hair and his eyes darted towards the church and his feet guided him, if only out of memory, towards his home. There was something to be said of the comfort of home in these times. Mary glanced back towards the impromptu prison. Surely, Mr. Small would be fine. He would not make an attempt at escape, resigned to what he deemed his fate. It was heavy on her mind. But she followed the mayor in stride to his two-story home, empty of all but the lingering presence of his family that had come before him in the paintings that hung on the wall. The most recent one was a portrait of him and his son that was poised above the fireplace. The former mayor and his dark-haired son and daughter hung elsewhere in the room. Mary’s eyes lingered on it for just a moment before she seated herself. Most always he would offer her some sort of tea or food. Today, he merely paced on the opposite side of the table. Mayor Bloodmarch was truly not much of the type to pace.

“Damien.” If she was not nervous given the context of the situation before, she was now. “Sit down. Please.” At the behest of the woman, his heeled boots stilled, but he did not sit. “What’s wrong?”

“I believe Robert may have bewitched your husband.” Mary’s head jerked up quite suddenly to look at the man who stood across from her. Images flashed through her head, her heart pounded. Her eyes shut tightly, but she continued to listen. “He would not talk to me. He would scarce speak when I found him praying at the pulpit after he so hurriedly left from the trial. He only told me that Robert consorted with the devil and that he was sure of it. But it was not…”

“For some time,” and she held her outermost skirt’s fabric in her hand, wishing now that Mayor Bloodmarch had the heart to offer her wine before she sat, “Joseph has acted strange. I thought… I thought I knew now why. I thought it was the child. But this…” Her heart was torn in two different directions and aching deep into her very core. “Why would Robert do that? What would he have to gain—”

Mayor Bloodmarch’s eyes were trained upon the brunette woman with his lips tightened thoroughly in a frown. “Your husband spurned him, did he not?”  
Bile filled her senses for a moment. “How much do you know, Damien?”

“I know of your husband’s infidelity. Robert talks to me too, you know.” The weight of everything was heavy on their shoulders, the secrets kept by the three of them. It was only a matter of time before their expertly concealed ruse came collapsing in and part of Mayor Bloodmarch was glad it was not upon his head. “I also know that Robert—Robert entertained emotions for your husband.”

Mary’s head was bowed as though in prayer, gazing at her hands that sat still in her lap. “I know. And they became bitterness, and hate, and resentment—”

“And you encouraged them because you also felt spurned by your own husband as he bedded your best friend. But that’s… not necessarily the point. I am not here to lecture you, Mary. I believe Robert cursed your husband. I don’t know when, but I have never seen Joseph like this in all of my days, and I have known him since we were children.” Both Father Joseph and Mayor Bloodmarch were natives of Maplesborough. Mr. Small and Mary had come along later, but the son of the former priest and the daughter of the former mayor had known one another in childhood. They had not been especially close, yet it was greater than a passing familiarly. “You… you state he knew of the loss of the child.”

The loss. It almost felt like the wrong word. Termination, maybe. But she didn’t want to think on it. “Yes.”

“And for how long?”

“Since… since it happened. But I think there’s more to it. I think…”

“Robert has cursed Father Joseph.” And, slowly, he slunk down onto the fainting couch. “And we… his friends, the whole town, have all been fooled.” Perhaps the witch hunt had not been in vain. The mayor and Mary alike would have to admit they had put blind trust into Mr. Small’s word and villainized the actions of the town’s priest when it may have been he who had been wrong. “And again, we find ourselves at the impasse that we must come to a decision as to what to do. How to handle this.” The two had found themselves at this particular stance a number of time, though earlier, Mr. Small had been involved. Probably not for the best, upon their reflection, upon their conclusion. The conclusion that Father Joseph was bewitched and cursed by Mr. Small and the Devil himself out of spite.

Mary opened her mouth but was silenced by the resounding sound of a scream that drowned the town. Eyes locked for only a moment before both she and the mayor ran towards the door.

 

“I wasn’t lying, you know.” It was Father Joseph’s voice, familiar and saccharine as Mr. Small looked at him. No one had thought anything of the fact that Father Joseph escorted the accused from the impromptu jailhouse. It made sense. Mr. Small may have had some confession to give, relevant to the accusations or not—he may want weight off of his soul. But now they stood in the same place where Mr. Small had opened his circles to draw upon magic time and time again. To rid Mary of child. To attempt to find the cause of the illness in the town.

Now he realized he may well have been safe had he not attempted to help.

He wasn’t safe anymore, and he knew it. And there was no trail that could save him from what he faced, there in the clearing where the grass was burned and the remnants of ash indicated his circle.

“You are a witch. You didn’t consort with the Devil, but you are guilty of witchcraft.”

Mr. Small’s hands were bound behind his back. He could have kicked, he could have screamed, he could have raised Cain and called attention to him, but to what end? Father Joseph could paint himself as innocent and the whole town would believe him. It was only a matter of time before even those that were the veteran’s allies turned against him, at this rate. So he simply hardened his expression, haggard and tired, as he looked straight ahead at the priest.

He still wore the cassock.

The irony made Mr. Small feel a little nauseous.

“Nothing to say in your defense?”

“See, I know you’re not Joseph. Joseph knows I fucking hate small talk.”

Grey eyes widened just a bit before he laughed, and it almost sounded like Father Joseph, but it didn’t quite, and Mr. Small knew that the conclusion he had come to, the theory he had tested, all of these things were confirmed in that moment. Mary had remarked that he had acted strangely, and honestly Mr. Small wanted to brush it off as much as anyone else. But he knew it now.

“There’s no defense for a guilty man. Just let Joseph go. Let the kids go. Do whatever you want to me—”

“Do you really think you were my end goal, Robert?” His face contorted in a frown at those words, feeling the hemp rope biting into his wrist as he struggled ever so slightly against them. “You’re not a coven leader. You don’t even have a coven. The only other ones in the town that practice remotely? They’re already turning against you. I planted the seed in the mayor’s mind that oh, Mr. Small cursed me, and the only one any the wiser to my behavior is Mary. The poor dear. She broke so easily when I told her I knew about the child.”

Brown eyes widened just a bit and he pulled further at his restraints. Throwing himself that the priest would do no good: he would just land face-down in the dirt. There really was no point in that. His teeth clicked together behind his lips, frustration evident in all angles. But he didn’t say anything.

“The children would have caught on. Children are always more adept to these kinds of things, you know. But it would be suspicious if it started with my children, wouldn’t it? –So it started with Craig’s. The illness that she had before was just convenient. Then, like any illness, it made its way through the town. It made it to the good, devout families. And then the town needed someone to blame.

“I knew that Mayor Bloodmarch was protecting you. I knew he helped me gather fake evidence against Mat, but I wasn’t about to stand and oppose it. It worked in my favor. It turned out that I was the one who cast suspicion upon the real witch.”

“No offense,” as Mr. Small’s features reacted slightly, “but I could give a shit less about your motivation. You won. Now what?”

“Now, Mr. Small,” and Mr. Small knew that knife. It was the one he had buried in the earth when he called upon something to take the child—something that seemed intent on taking more children. Something that had used the open door of sadness hidden within the heart of the goodly priest of Maplesborough to possess him. This is what he had called.

It was his fault.

“I win.”

He tasted blood before he was even aware of the pain that shot through his chest. The athame was lodged now deep beneath his throat, between his collarbones. He staggered slightly, nearly falling as the knife was withdrawn only for it to pierce again within moments, through the heart.

“I’m sorry, Robert. It’s just that you were the only one that knew, and the only one that would be able to get rid of me.”

His vision faded to black.

Mr. Small collapsed to the ground, and the priest made quick work of undoing the binds that were restraining his hands. It was easy enough. He would spin a story of how he had convinced the witch to show him where it was he came to speak with the Devil, that he agreed to release the children only there; he placed Mr. Small in binds and they went there. Then he stated to call upon the Devil he needed the knife he had buried, he needed to be unbound. Trusting Mr. Small, Father Joseph (or at least, what passed as him) yielded to both requests. That was when Mr. Small turned on him, and he had to disarm him, and in a panicked stated of self-preservation, stabbed the man to death.

And then, he screamed. He screamed loud enough the whole town would hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .... aaaand there's our thrilling conclusion! i hope it didn't feel forced or anything, i was a little wary of that.
> 
> if anyone is interested in beta-ing the fic, let me know. i've got other projects waiting in the wings so i don't have the time to devote to it unfortunately.
> 
> enjoy the epilogue!


	4. Epilogue

“ … And the priest stabbed the knife again and again into the heart of the witch, killing him instantly. ‘You are the only one that would be able to get rid of me,’ the vengeful spirit hissed through the mouth of the priest. ‘I win.’”

  
Damien gripped the pillow tighter against his chest with eyes wide in fear, Robert mimicking the gesture of a knife stabbing into his own chest before lowering himself back  down upon the couch.   


“The priest’s wife and the mayor fell for the lies of the priest, and the children never recovered. The spirit thrived off the misery of the town with the knowledge that it was the  victor. The end.”   


Mary tipped the bottle of wine into her glass again, grabbing a handful of popcorn from where it sat on the table. Her hand was extended flat, waving in a ‘so-so’ motion. “Not  bad, Robbie. Not your best work, but not bad. Are you cleaning this up to send to the publisher too?”   


What Mary deemed ‘not bad’ was clearly enough to shake Damien down to his very high-heeled boots (he normally wore heels, these were just a bit more stiletto than an average day. It was Halloween, after all) and hold fast to the down pillow as if it would protect him from the demon priest. Rob gave a low laugh as he sat upon the couch again, reaching for the glass of whiskey that sat on the table. His hair was slicked back, his shirt white instead of the signature red and his leather jacket was draped on the back of the couch. Hey, a greaser was a perfectly legitimate Halloween costume. Mary was in the nun outfit. Again.   


“That’s horrible,” sounded the voice of the IT Professional from behind his pillow. “All of the children died? The witch died? I always thought he was good, I wouldn’t have doubted him…”   


Brian came in from the kitchen with a beer in one hand, a patch over his eye. The kids were mostly already asleep, save for Lucien who hung out by the fireplace, wiping off heavy black makeup with one of his father’s makeup wipes. “Dang! Did I miss Robert’s over-dramatic ending? I always love that. It’s the best part.”   


“It wasn’t over-dramatic,” grumbled the man over his glass. “At least you’re not like some people who are late to the party and missed the whole damned story.”   


“Well, half of the joy of Robert’s stories are in the telling, really,” came Hugo’s contribution over a glass of wine. He was in a black suit, hair pulled back tight from his face. A small raven hung by a prayer on his shoulder.  “And the over-dramatic endings are his artistic signature.” Mary handed off the wine bottle to Hugo as he refilled it.   


“The poor witch. The poor mayor! They were hiding so much. I can’t imagine the fear—and the priest’s wife. Oh, she must have been devastated at the loss of her children.”  Lucien scoffed from his corner, his father looking over at him with cheeks puffed ever so slightly. “Do you have something to say, Lucien?”   


“Dad, you read enough fanfiction to know a self-insert when you see one, don’t you?”   


Hugo laughed aloud while Damien threw a pillow in the direction of his son.   


“Yeah, well,” Mat’s voice sounded from the adjacent room, “I felt pretty bad for the guy that got accused at first. You know? Like, circumstantial evidence was enough to get convicted back then, he could’ve died, and can you imagine knowing that the mayor forged evidence against you to save someone else? Geez.”   


Damien pursed his lips and settled back behind his pillow. Brian had only just gone to flip the light switch when the storm outside thundered and all the electronics in the room flickered out. Thankfully, the firelight remained.   


“A stormy Halloween is the perfect setting for more of Robert’s stories, don’t you think?” Hugo suggested. “Besides, with the power out… well, what else are we going to do?”   


“Oh, please,” came Damien’s voice from behind his pillow. “I’m sure the power will be right back on…”   


Brian flipped the dead switch anyway as thought to verify, but the room stayed dark and thematic. Mat yelped as he stubbed his toe. Robert had opened his mouth to make sure the coffee shop owner was still intact when the door opened with a flash of lightning casting a tall, long shadow across the floor. Framed in the doorway was a man in full priest cassock holding in his hand a silver platter with a knife’s handle sticking from something on it.   


Despite all bravado, the room seemed to almost collectively scream at the vision. The sound of the electricity kicking back in as the room’s light came to illuminate Joseph, standing there with a plate of brownies and a very plastic knife shoved into them for thematic decorum, wide eyed and blinking.   


“I couldn’t get Crish to go down for bed. What… did I miss something?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy halloween ;)

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for making it this far! please note my portrayal of 'magic' and 'witchcraft' is primarily focused on earth-based religions and reflects practices i've observed among pagans in my circle. 
> 
> my knowledge of christianity is lesser, i'm afraid. feel free to correct anything you read as a misinterpretation!


End file.
